Medical Education > Longitudinal Study of MD/MBA Students

At the present time there is no simple way to identify the growing number of medical students enrolled in combined MD/MBA programs, as well as those who have already graduated with dual degrees. This study involves the development of a national registry of these physicians to make it possible to track them longitudinally throughout their careers. The following is the plan for this database beginning in the 2007-2008 academic year:

Phase I    A shared database for all schools will be developed at Jefferson Medical College under the direction of Dr. David Nash, Jon Veloski and Mary Robeson. The leaders of the combined degree programs at over 50 medical schools will be invited to add the names of their past and present students to this national resource. This registry will include the students’ names, year of graduation, specialty pursued immediately after graduation and residency training institution.

Only aggregate summaries (totals, number of graduates by year within schools) will be made public. Although the 4 pieces of data on each physician are readily-available public information, the data will be maintained in a secure environment and treated as highly confidential using policies and procedures that Jefferson researchers have developed in other national studies. Each school will retain ownership of the data on its students and will have the right to withdraw it from the shared database at any time.

Phase II    The database will support collaborative surveys of these students and physicians. For example, a web site could be created and each school could invite its students and graduates to participate in the survey. The schools could compare the aggregate responses of their graduates to the pattern of responses of graduates in similar types of programs.

Phase III    The database will also make it possible to track the careers and board certification of these physicians through the Physicians’ Professional Data (the physician master-file) maintained by the American Medical Association. Researchers at Jefferson have had experience working with the PPD, which includes type of career, address and board certification status.

In summary, this project will enable all of the schools to work together collaboratively to establish a firm foundation for a system that will enable them to follow the careers of the next generation of physician leaders