{"id":2164,"date":"2020-01-27T07:32:35","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T12:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/?p=2164"},"modified":"2020-01-14T11:33:37","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T16:33:37","slug":"a-sustainable-innovation-mba-disrupts-the-medicine-vortex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/2020\/01\/27\/a-sustainable-innovation-mba-disrupts-the-medicine-vortex\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sustainable Innovation MBA Disrupts The Medicine Vortex"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post was written by Than Moore ’20. Connect with him on LinkedIn.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before matriculating to business school, I worked full time as\nan emergency medicine physician assistant at the University of Vermont Medical\nCenter. I, along with my colleagues, was solely focused on maximizing patient\ncare. My responsibilities included diagnosing and treating patients of all ages\nand acuity levels. The clinical world became my home. Putting on scrubs every\nday to go into the hospital, I join the hundreds of other employees working\ntowards a similar mission of delivering the highest level of patient care. The ability\nto practice and treat members in my community is a privilege. It is one of the\ngreatest accomplishments with which I can relate. However, it can also\nmonopolize your life, and is forever demanding. It becomes nearly impossible to\npause and observe the system in which we operate. The pursuit of my MBA\ndisrupted the traditional linear trajectory of my medical career and provided\nthe time and space to refocus the lens in which I viewed the world.        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by\u00a0JC Gellidon<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Medicine is a vortex. To become a doctor, one must dedicate\nyears of commitment to the craft. You must first complete prerequisite\ncoursework before donating countless years toward schooling, residency, and\nfellowship. By demonstrating academic and clinical excellence and passing more\ntests than one could imagine, it then becomes time to start your clinical\npractice. The journey is arduous, but the reward to grant another breath to a\ngasping loved one is worth all the effort. Medicine becomes an addiction. We\nare slaves to the system to glean all the knowledge we can to optimize our\nperformance. It monopolizes our lives with long days, demanding call schedules,\nand tragic cases that keep us up at night. However, I was granted the\nopportunity to take a sabbatical from my clinical responsibilities and observe\nthe field from the outside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first learned of The Sustainable Innovation MBA (SI-MBA) program at UVM from a friend who knew of my love of academia and solving problems. Sustainable business became the perfect blend of my undergraduate analytical mathematical degree, my medical background, and my passion for the environment and society as a whole. Embedded in the curriculum are quantitative business skills such as finance, accounting, and economics, but there are also fundamental organizational skills taught through courses on corporate social responsibility, sustainable\u00a0leadership, and teamwork. The focus of the coursework is to optimize a sustainable enterprise by maximizing the triple bottom line: people, profit and the planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beauty of the SI-MBA program is that one can personalize their education to incorporate individual interests. For example, I am fortunate to tailor my business research and projects towards medicine. Subsequently, I wish to highlight ways in which the triple bottom line educational model has broadened my perspective to incorporate sustainability into fundamental daily operations in both the medical community and greater society.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin, people are at the core of all operating systems.\nOur world revolves around successful human interactions. The ability to\ncollaborate with one another stems from leadership and teamwork skills. Group\nwork is a fundamental component in the SI-MBA curriculum. During each of the\nmodule terms, every student is designated a team. The team is responsible to\nexecute all projects, presentations, and assignments together. Rarely, do you\nsee employees working alone, so why should academics reflect that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medicine, in particular, revolves around team\ncollaboration. With the blending of specialties and skills to navigate\ndifferent disease processes, we are constantly reliant on our colleagues for\ntheir expertise. If a trauma victim presents requiring extensive resources,\nmultiple hands are needed to gain IV access, deliver medications, perform\ndiagnostic studies, and make life altering decisions. One could not operate\nalone in such a high stress environment. By maximizing team collaboration,\nexecuting impeccable leadership qualities, and maximizing the potential of all\nskilled team members, a team can perform at its highest capability. Medical\nschools are paying more attention to these traits by focusing efforts on team\nbased learning; however, the ability to acquire these skills outside of\nmedicine through my coursework and integrate them back into the clinic will\nbecome a critical asset in my performance as a provider. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Profit: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human nature has tainted us with the dollar sign as being\nthe goal for many operations. It is easy to entice individuals with a lucrative\nsalary when pitching ideas; however, it becomes difficult to attract people to\nwork without a profit. I am all for philanthropy and volunteer work, but at\nsome point a profit needs to be made in order to become a sustainable\noperation. In class, we learn quantitative skills surrounding sustainable\nventures, managing cash flow  statements, creating sustainable value\nportfolios, and observing the balance between the willingness to pay and\nwillingness to sell in multi factorial economies. We explore the methodology\nbehind profit maximization by either increasing the net income or by decreasing\nexpenses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relating this to medicine, it is with a heavy heart that I\nadmit, healthcare is also a business looking to make a profit. While I wish we\ncould focus all our efforts only on patient care, it is not quite that simple. I\nhave a new found appreciation for the cost of procedures, equipment, and resources\nin medical facilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently was involved in a project to decrease the cost\nof suture kits in the medical center. Typically a dozen instruments are wrapped\nin a sterile manner and distributed throughout multiple departments. In the\nemergency department, these kits are opened frequently for the routine use of only\nthree or four of the packaged instruments. Once the sterile seal has been\nbroken, the whole kit needs to be re-sterilized before the next use. This\nprocess can cost upwards of $10 per kit and utilizes excess water and energy.\nWe proposed a new solution to form kits containing only the most frequently\nused four instruments, negating the excessive cleaning costs of unused\ninstruments. The other components could be specially ordered of needed. With\nthe plethora of suture kits opened in the emergency department alone, thousands\nof dollars will be saved. By recognizing and prioritizing cost reduction and\nefficient packaging, this could be just the beginning to solving further\nmedical advancements to bring down the price of health care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planet:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SI-MBA program began with a course titled, World\nChallenges. Through class discussions and readings by Jared Diamond and Jeffrey\nSachs among others, we were quickly enlightened to the problems faced by our\ncurrent generation. Example issues included growing population dynamics,\nincreased resource consumption and waste production, food scarcity, and climate\nchange. Our world and resources are finite and demand the attention to maximize\nlongevity for future generations. Although it would be nice, I am not\nadvocating that we all need to immediately stop what we are doing to save the\nplanet. However, if possible, we should begin to integrate these topics into\nour decisions and actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example outlined in creating a sustainable value\nportfolio is product stewardship. In this theory, we attempt to minimize the negative\neffects throughout the entire lifespan of specific products. Take a plastic\nbottle for example. Think about how that bottle is manufactured and where it\ngoes after we consume its contents. How much energy is used to produce the\ncontainer and how long does it take to decompose in a landfill or at the bottom\nof the ocean? By changing the way we think of products, we can create circular\neconomies and reuse products to decrease waste and harmful environmental\nimpacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Observing my clinical duties from afar, it is easy to now\nsee some of the difficulties of implementing change. These world challenges are\nscarcely discussed when bouncing from room to room trying to maximize the\namount of patients I can treat in one shift. For example, after an injured\npatient is cared for in our trauma bay, it is not infrequent to dispose of five\nbags of trash created from the casualty. Littered across the room are gauze\nbandages, tubing, medication containers, linens, instruments, syringes, gloves,\netc. The excess plastic, paper, and metal products are quickly disposed of in\nbiohazard and landfill waste. Furthermore, how many utensils in the operating\nroom are opened only to be found to be the incorrect size and then either\ndisposed of or sent back for intensive sterilization? While some may notice\nthese harmful effects, the majority of us quickly move on to the next patient\nand forget about the waste we are creating on a daily basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, I chose to observe rubber glove consumption\nin the hospital. Each time I enter the room to see a patient, I put on new\ngloves. If I see fifteen patients in a shift and enter the room two or three times,\nI could use upwards of six gloves just for one patient, totaling 90 gloves\nconsumed per day. All these gloves end up in landfills or biohazard waste units,\ngrowing exponentially by the minute. So how do we combat such a wasteful\nprocess? And how many other similar situations are occurring without gaining\nour attention? Could we invent a sustainable glove that is compostable or\nrecyclable to offset our carbon footprint? Who is observing these trends and trying\nto offset our consumption with environmentally friendly alternatives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar problems persist throughout the healthcare industry and\nbeyond. How can we incorporate sustainable energy into the medical system,\nabolish social inequalities among patient-provider relationships, or outsource\nour food demands to only local farms? There are so many questions that arise\naround bettering our system, but it wasn\u2019t until my invested time at SI-MBA\nthat I began noticing the need to create an impact. By bringing attention to\nthese adversities faced by our demanding population, I understand the\nimportance of refocusing our efforts to best support our future\ngenerations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post SI-MBA, I\u2019m privileged with the opportunity to return to the\nmedical world equipped with this newly found knowledge and appreciation for\nsustainability. I plan to be re-inserted back into the medicine vortex by\ncompleting my quest to become a physician. However, I will enter medical school\nas a spy, as I have developed the knowledge and skillset to detect deficiencies\nin the system. I am privileged to focus my efforts on both maximizing patient\ncare while also optimizing sustainable endeavors by strengthening impactful\nstakeholder engagement to better our future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asking yourself if a SI-MBA education is right for you, the\nanswer is yes. It provides a tool kit to not only better equip oneself with\nquantitative, collaborative, theoretical, and managerial leadership skills, but\nalso to develop a mindset in which to approach problems and develop solutions\nto better society in whatever industry you choose to pursue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Than Moore ’20. Connect with him on LinkedIn. Before matriculating to business school, I worked full time as an emergency medicine physician assistant at the University of Vermont Medical Center. I, along with my colleagues, was solely focused on maximizing patient care. My responsibilities included diagnosing and treating patients of … <\/p>\n

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