SGMD1 said:
Very interesting info bluejay...which leads me to a few more questions. What sorts of things does someone do in a field like health care consulting? And how does an MD degree play a role in something like hedge fund management, for example?
For consulting, there are generally two routes an MD/MBA can take:
1) Management Consulting (i.e., McKinsey, Bain, BCG, others)
2) Boutique Consulting (i.e., Cambridge Pharma, many others)
When working for a Management Consulting firm, you will likely be working on a healthcare-related case, but not always. Healthcare clients like MD/MBA's because they "talk the talk" and also have business skills/understanding. The Management Consulting firms will give you a more broad business experience and a more recognizable name on your resume, but the Boutique shops tend to be smaller, with more opportunity to interact with senior-level leaders, and may play more to your clinical strengths. There are more pros and cons, but these are some of the big ones.
In terms of "what one does" for a healthcare client, it can vary tremendously, including marketing, efficiency, production, brand strategy, pipeline strategy, M&A, licensing, corporate strategy, legislative response and strategy, and many more. For example, an aging brand at a pharma company may be looking to maximize value toward the end of the lifecycle and they turn to a consultant to do a competitive analysis and make recommendations for increasing revenue (i.e., reduce manufacturing costs, launch a new marketing campaign, seek alternative indications/uses/patient populations, change the pricing strategy, license the product to another company, and on and on). Another example may be a state hiring a consulting firm to help manage their Medicaid program; many states are in crisis mode with Medicaid and thus, have enlisted help to keep the system running.
In regard to hedge funds, I have less experience here, but the activity of an MD/MBA (or an MD without an MBA) would be to serve as an "expert" in one or more scientific areas. You would be expected to know a particular field very well (who are the players, what products are in the pipeline, etc), and you would be expected to influence or make investing decisions based on this knowledge. The understanding is that the MD background gives you an inherent advantage over non-MDs when it comes to researching healthcare companies and their products, thus there is added value.