MD/MBA Curriculum

Please see the curriculum schematic below for information on how the MBA curriculum integrates with MD coursework, or view as a pdf.

HS215b Corporate Finance
This course focuses on the financial decisions of corporations and other organizations, particularly investment and financing decisions. It introduces institutional background on financial markets and instruments. It also considers the applicability of the financial analysis and decision tools to the nonprofit as well as for profit sectors.

HS246b Statistics
Presents students with an introduction to the fundamentals of parametric statistics. Covers the essentials required for students to understand issues related to measurement and how to generate descriptive information and statistical analyses from these measurements. Focuses primarily on understanding the importance of summary measures along with a study of fundamental statistical distributions.

HS250a Financial Accounting
In this course, students will develop a fundamental understanding of financial accounting and reporting issues as they apply to non-profit and for-profit organizations. Students will learn about the importance of fiscal responsibility and integrity in the efficient utilization of an organization’s resources relative to organizational goals. Accounting practices that are unique to non-profit organizations will be introduced, discussed and differentiated from those practices employed by for-profit entities. Emphasis will be placed on interpreting financial statements to understand how accounting information, in a variety of settings, can be utilized by decision makers.

HS251b Managerial Accounting
This course provides general introduction to the concepts, problems, and issues related to managerial accounting. Managerial accounting predominantly addresses the internal use of economic information regarding the resources used in the process of producing goods and providing services. Fundamental aspects of cost behavior and cost accounting will be discussed, but always from the perspective of the manager who must make decisions rather than the accountant who prepares the information.

HS252b Strategic Management
This course teaches students the theoretical constructs and practical tools necessary to create and manage organizations strategically. The course includes strategic process, organizational design, and development of planning tools and cycles. All students perform an applied strategic analysis for an actual organization.

HS253b Leadership and Organizational Behavior
This course focuses on leadership and managing organizations. The course uses cases on a variety of organizations to expose students to problems and to improve their effectiveness in analyzing, diagnosing, and leading people in organizations. Students will learn organizational concepts, analytic frameworks, and models, and will practice their leadership skills in class. The course uses case discussions, simulations, role-playing, mini-lecturing, and experiential exercises. The course provides an opportunity for students to develop leadership skills through group work and reflection.

HS257b Conflict Resolution by Negotiation
Develops in students an understanding of the nature, advantages, and limitations of negotiations as a conflict resolution tool. Provides a normative and practical framework for pursuing a negotiation strategy as a method of resolving disputes. Provides students with opportunities to apply this knowledge in a variety of simulated negotiation contexts. Finally, exposes students to feedback regarding their negotiation approaches via explicit instructor evaluation and via the impact of their actions on their teammates and opponents.

HS258a Operations Management in Service Organizations
This course explores how organizations deliver high-quality services while using resources efficiently. Students develop skills including quality assessment, process mapping, improving work processes through IT, productivity analysis, wait-time analysis, customization versus standardization of work processes, project management, and scheduling.

HS285a Marketing
This course provides an overview of marketing with a focus on how to formulate marketing strategies and identify and evaluate strategy-based tactics in order to achieve organizational marketing goals. Topics include strategic market planning, market research and analysis; consumer behavior; market segmentation, targeting, and positioning; social marketing; and the marketing mix–product, price, distribution, promotion, and marketing communications.

HS290a Economic Analysis for Managers
Introduces economic approaches to managerial and policy decision making. Covers supply and demand, market structures, pricing and market failure, as well as useful tools such as optimization and game theory. Concepts are reinforced with case analyses and examples from the health and human services sectors. Some calculus required.

HS299b Team Consulting Project
This course provides a capstone educational experience for students nearing the end of the M.B.A. curriculum. Working under the supervision of a faculty advisor, teams of three to five students provide management consulting services to a mission-driven organization or business unit in the Greater Boston area.

HS357f  & HS348f  Health Law and Ethics I & II
Introduces MBA students in health administration and management, to the legal issues that health care professionals confront in managing a health care organization. Begins with patient care (liability) issues and thereafter provides an overview of other health care delivery issues such as the legal structure of corporations, healthcare finance and managed care, intellectual property and healthcare entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Students become familiar with the basic legal principles governing how health care institutions are operated and how legal doctrine is formulated. The course also familiarizes students with the emerging ethical issues in healthcare management.

HS347a Healthcare Technology & Information Systems
Discusses the role of science and technology in health care settings. Through case studies of technology companies (pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, and information technology), the class examines how firms manage the creation, development, adoption, and spread of medical innovations in the context of a cost-constrained marketplace. The class uses current academic literature and newspaper articles to discuss how hospitals, insurers, and federal agencies can affect technological progress.

HS365a Physicians Executive Field Experience
An introduction to the real and complex problems of management and systems changes. Teams of three or four students work under the supervision of a faculty coordinator, physician executives, and other administrative personnel on a mutually agreed upon project designed to further the mission of the specific sponsoring health care industry organization within the time and resource constraints of the course.

HS513a Issues in National Health Policy
An overview of the U.S. health care system is followed by a critical analysis of the major issues and trends in the health care field. The course will concentrate on the activities of federal and state governments and the private sector. In addition, the course will explore likely future issues affecting our health system. Of special concern is the issue of the large number of Americans with no or inadequate health insurance. A related problem, which will be highlighted as well, is the rising cost of medical care, which results in increases in the number of uninsured.

HS518a Management of Health Care Organizations
The course introduces students to the concepts, theories and practical problems of managing people in health care organizations. Case material is drawn from hospital, HMO, group practice, public health agency, and for-profit company settings. Students will gain a better understanding of the range of strategic and operational problems faced by managers, some of the analytic tools to diagnose problems, and the role of leadership (and management) in improving the performance.