An Insight into a Different World – MBA after BDS

As the world becomes complex & competitive to live in, it becomes very important to make right decisions at the right time. After completing graduation in dentistry, that time would certainly knock the door and the young graduates would be in immense pressure thinking as to how to shape their career. It becomes important not only to succeed in the life but also to satisfy the needs of the society being its respectable health servants.

Some doctors might opt for private dental practise to start serving people whereas some doctors plan to continue their education to enhance their skills in some specific department. For the people who want to continue their education further after graduation, you have options in the form of post-graduation courses in dentistry which can be categorised as diploma courses and master’s courses (MDS). This is the general perception which many dental graduates have and it is a known fact that very few people think beyond that. The time has certainly come to analyse and evaluate the different options that as a normal graduate you can pursue for the betterment of the field you have studied for past few years. Some of these courses include post-graduation in management (MBA), UPSC and few other public sector courses. As a graduate from a respectable profession, you can also think of doing masters of public health in different branches and diploma courses in medical fields related to dentistry.

As a student of Management (MBA) from a prestigious brand of B-school of India, I am keener to share some management options available for a dental graduate. There is a saying that every sector or every profession require managers to effectively use the resources available and make the profits to succeed in the business. Being a dentist, earning money seems to be very easy, but when it comes to increasing the profits after tallying the balance sheet, people find it difficult. I have seen many doctors starting multiple dental clinics after initial successes, but when it comes to managing, they tend to give up and keep their clinics for sale. It’s just that doing an MBA enables you to understand the business problems at the highest level. Besides, with the current opportunities in healthcare management in the country, an MBA seems to be the way forward.

For a dental graduate, the options in management studies include Hospital Administration, Health Administration, Pharmaceutical Management and plane MBA specializing in general fields like Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Operations or Systems. It can be pursued as a fulltime course or part time course and the duration of the course depends on the institute you are choosing for it. There are some institutes which complete the course in 9 months and there are some which take around 3 years. But the most common duration which many institutes across India offer is 2 years. Some institutes offer part time courses for the same timings but conduct lectures in the weekends which solely target the working professionals.

As the name suggests MBA in hospital management teaches the hospital administration to the peak as it includes the subjects related to different departments of a hospital, whereas MBA in health management enables you to understand the grass root level of healthcare system in India, most part of which include health insurance and healthcare consultancy subjects. There are some colleges in India which provide both this courses in a single diploma as MBA in health and hospital management. Moreover, as you may know healthcare sector in India is in a booming state and one of the reason is increasing opportunities in pharma sector because of which many foreign players are coming to India and merging with or acquiring Indian pharma companies. So MBA in pharmaceutical management would give you a stand to succeed in this largely profitable sector.

Besides all this specialised courses, one more option which you may consider is general or plane MBA, which will help you understanding the basic business models on a general point of view and open the options for you to join any of the above said sectors as well as many other sectors which you may be interested in depending on your will to leave this dental or health related sector. But you may find it difficult to cope up with as some of the subjects in this course may sound new and complex to you. But certainly nothing is said to be impossible and am saying this as we, dental graduates, can handle this things on a relatively easier way. Besides I am into my third trimester (out of six) in my institute doing plane MBA and I can safely say that it’s not that hard.

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he word success is always an individual dependant. For someone, the magnitude of success may be small and he/she may call that they succeed in life. MBA is just a mode that one can pick up in your life as a career option; but that do not assure you the success. It is always your skills that come up first and the way you implement it, matters the most. In short success is not doing an MBA but MBA can be considered as one of the success mode in life. Rely on yourself than relying on any degree.

I will come up with a post related to how I prepared for entrance exams in addition to different management institutes and their respective admission procedures, in my next blog within next 10 days.

Disclaimer: This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own, based on research in real life and online portals.

Dr. Kishor Chindam

BDS, MGM Dental College, Navi Mumbai

PGP-I, Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli (IIM Trichy)