The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is committing to producing well-rounded business leaders to shape the future of healthcare. This commitment is evident in the recently announced new joint-degree MBA/MS Biomedical Sciences program, an opportunity for students to combine business expertise with a foundation in biomedicine. Booth has also expanded its options in the MBA program with a new concentration in healthcare, allowing students to further tailor their education to their professional goals in the industry.
These program enhancements have emerged out of Booth’s 2020 Healthcare Initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration working to improve the healthcare industry with research and analytical approaches.
The joint-degree curriculum requires 14 Booth courses, plus the school’s signature Leadership Effectiveness and Development (LEAD) course required of all full-time students, and six MS courses over two years. For the core MBA requirements, students select one course from each of three categories: Financial Accounting, Microeconomics, and Statistics. Additional credits are required in Functions, Leadership and Management, and Business Environment, and finally, the curriculum is rounded out with 400 electives for students to choose from.
The BMS component of the program requires the core classes Foundations in Biomedical Sciences I, II, and III, Bioethics, and Health Systems, plus 100 units in one of four concentrations: Science Communication, Biomedical Data Science, Health Systems Science, and Biomedical Innovation. Depending on the concentration, different combinations of BMS or Booth courses can meet the unit requirements, making the program highly customizable.
Tuition costs will differ from Booth’s standard Full-Time MBA Program. Students completing the joint degree program will receive an MBA from Chicago Booth alongside a master in biomedical sciences (BMS) from the University of Chicago.
Booth’s new MBA concentration in healthcare is one of 14 concentrations students can choose from. The healthcare concentration integrates business and medical perspectives on the industry’s challenges. Students choose four healthcare classes and up to one lab course with options spanning everything from innovation and finance in life sciences to entrepreneurship and social policy. The concentration is designed for students targeting a career in healthcare consulting, administration, business development, and even private equity.
These new healthcare opportunities in the MBA program allow students to combine leadership and management skills with research and clinical skills to tackle the challenges facing global healthcare.
“We are proud to add these two new programs to Chicago Booth’s existing healthcare offerings,” said Dan Adelman, co-director of the Booth Healthcare Initiative, director of Chicago Booth’s Healthcare Analytics Laboratory, and the Charles I. Clough, Jr. Professor of Operations Management in the school’s press release. “Through the application of rigorous frameworks for understanding and analyzing the complex market dynamics and managerial issues that drive the industry, Booth’s healthcare curriculum prepares students to lead and make a positive impact in the global healthcare community.”
