Why an MD alone is ‘practically worthless’ for physician leaders today

While physicians serving in leadership roles is nothing new, the demands of physician leadership and the medical field overall have shifted significantly over the last several years.

Regis DeSilva, MD, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Becker’s that the medical field today demands more from physicians than what is traditionally taught in medical schools.

“Getting an MD alone is practically worthless in today’s [leadership] environment,” he said. “The reason for that is that it’s been taken over by MBAs and business people, and they don’t pay any attention to garden-variety MDs.”

Dr. DeSilva, who also has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard, said that younger physicians...