MBA for Executives: Program Welcomed Members of Its Charter Class on August 1, 2005

After several years of planning and over a year of preparation, the Leadership in Healthcare MBA program welcomed the members of its charter class on August 1st. Two months later the students are exhausted, working harder than they expected, and even more excited about their decision to come to Yale SOM than they were at orientation.

The class comprises 22 students who come from pharmaceuticals, biotech, managed care, hospitals, medical devices, private practice, nonprofit policy advocacy, the U.S. Navy’s Medical Research Lab, and healthcare consulting. They hold jobs like nurse administrator, clinical director, neurosurgeon, interventional radiologist, medical director, and CEO. Most already hold advanced degrees, with a mix of MDs, PhDs, MSNs, MSs, and MPHs. The average age is 40.

A quote from one member of the class, Chris Day, sums up the general attitude of the group: “I commute over 800 miles – past at least a dozen well-respected schools with EMBA programs – to attend classes at Yale. But the SOM program’s healthcare focus, its intimate community of classmates, faculty and visiting scholars, its cutting-edge managerial scholarship, and the fact that these things together have already increased my impact on the populations I serve, remind me daily why I decided to do this.”

In addition to doing the behind-the-scenes work to make sure everything goes smoothly for these student pioneers, the MBA-E staff is hard at work recruiting applicants for the class of 2008. We already have applications from some great candidates, including one from Palo Alto and one from Seattle, as well as a number of enthusiastic prospects who will be applying later in the fall. Clearly, the blending of faculty and curriculum from the Medical School, the School of Public Health, and the School of Management, combined with an all-star roster of Visiting Scholars and a hands-on, project-based Field Studies Program, has a stronger appeal among mid-career healthcare professionals than we had dared hope during our early planning.

Naturally we welcome alumni referrals of candidates from any area of healthcare, but there are several types of applicants that were underrepresented in last year’s applicant pool, which we’ll be making a special effort to attract this year. These include people from government departments doing policy, legislation, or service provision; nonprofit-advocacy or service-providing organizations; and healthcare managers whose professional background is in nursing. If you know anyone in any of these areas who might be ready to think about MBA study, please make sure we know about them.

You can learn more about the MBA-E program and the charter class at our newly relaunched program website: http://mba.yale.edu/mba-e, and if you’d like a copy of our program brochure we’ll be happy to mail you one. Just email us at mba-e.admissions@yale.edu and tell us where to send it.