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Credit: Addison Geary
Mark Goldberg, starting his second year
at the School of Law-Camden, says that
after 25 years as an anaesthesiologist
he was seeking a new intellectual
challenge. He views a legal career as a
way to tackle public policy questions,
not only in medicine but in society in
general.
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Credit: Roy Groething
Frances Bouchoux, associate dean for
admissions at the School of Law-Newark,
talks with Ron White, a Bergen County
surgeon who is a second-year law
student. White says that many
physicians his age, in their 40s and
50s, are unhappy and looking for career
changes.
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The doctor is in – in class, that is. As health care issues grow increasingly complex, more physicians are returning to college for business and law degrees to help them cope with the nonmedical aspects of their practices. At Rutgers, M.D.s are earning M.B.A.s at the Newark, New Brunswick and Camden campuses or J.D.s in Newark and Camden.
What would prompt someone in a prestigious but demanding profession – one that requires four years of medical school and another two to eight years of residency training – to take on yet another graduate degree?
Doctors who are earning M.B.A. and J.D. degrees at Rutgers say they want to advance in their profession, improve their financial bottom line or better meet the challenges posed by managed-care and Medicare regulations plus soaring malpractice insurance costs. A few are making total career changes.
“Since the early 1990s, with changes in the health care industry, the profession has become more of a business,” says Frances Bouchoux, associate dean for admissions at the School of Law-Newark. “As a small-businessman, a doctor needs to understand the relevant regulatory law to be able to manage the legal and business aspects of practice as well as the medical ones.”
Ron White, a Bergen County doctor with a colon and rectal surgery practice, is a second-year law student at the School of Law-Newark. He says he’s not sure what he’ll do with his law degree when he’s finished: “My spectrum ranges from not ever using the law degree to the other extreme, where I give up medicine.” But he knows quite a few physicians exploring other careers and believes the number will increase.
“Physicians my age, in their 40s and 50s, are miserable,” White says. “A lot of physicians are looking for career changes.”
Most physicians interviewed for this article listed a personal issue – longtime interest in another field, practical considerations or a desire to improve their businesses – as their primary reason for going back to school. But nearly all of them cited the worsening financial outlook for physicians as a close No. 2.
Manish Vig, an emergency medicine specialist who practices at a Mount Holly hospital, is an M.B.A. student at the Camden business school’s new Voorhees site. He says his net salary is 25 percent to 30 percent less than it was at its peak three or four years ago.
“That’s not a small difference,” Vig says.
Among the reasons for doctors’ gloomy financial outlook: Medical malpractice insurance premiums rose 75 percent in the state from 2001 to 2003, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance has reported. A doctor in one of the high-risk categories, such as obstetrics, may pay $100,000 annually or more in premiums.
In addition, Medicare, Medicaid and HMO reimbursements often fail to cover a doctor’s costs, and the paperwork and bureaucracy involved can be expensive and mind-numbing, physicians say.
“Dealing with the different insurance companies is terrible,” says anesthesiologist Marc Goldberg, who is starting his second year at the School of Law-Camden. “They pay what they want to pay you and when they want to pay you – or tough noogies. Medicare is also a terrible payer, and it’s such a big piece of the business.”
Goldberg, who practices in South Jersey and Philadelphia, says he was drawn to a law degree for “personal and policy” reasons. After 25 years as an anesthesiologist, he was looking for a new intellectual challenge. Goldberg also sees a legal career as a way to tackle public policy questions, not only in medicine but also in society.
Faced with a complex regulatory environment, doctors deal with legal issues every day, Goldberg says. Both Goldberg and Douglas DiPaola, another physician enrolled in the Camden law school, say entering the field of medical malpractice law was an obvious possibility after graduation. Neither is sure exactly what he’ll do, but both believe there will be no shortage of opportunities.
DiPaola, who was a cardiac surgeon until a car accident ended his surgical career in 2003, says other possibilities include becoming an administrator or in-house counsel for a hospital or practicing medical device patent law.
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