Consulting Case as a Stepping-Stone for Newcomers: A Discovery of the Intersection of Business and Medicine
By Sophia Dunkin
On the first day of my International Business course, I didn’t know what to expect when I found out we would be working on a consulting case with a real company. As a pre-med student, taking a business course without any prior experience or knowledge of the business world was something of both a challenge and an opportunity.
Many question what the purpose is of pursuing a business education as a pre-med student or even as a physician. According to Health Leaders Media, about 53% of physician executives in a survey responded as possessing a business degree. In another article by Harvard Business Review, a figure, shown below, was used to describe the unknown fact that business and strategic skills that come from participating in business courses or a business masters program are needed in order to meet the responsibilities demanded within being a physician leader in a medical field.
This knowledge has driven me to pursue a deeper education in business along with the necessary STEM courses to fully prepare myself in order to become the best leader I can be. I didn’t know what I was going to learn or what I would take away from my experience in this course but I was pleased to realize the immense impact both the course and consulting case had on advancing my path to medicine. In addition, it allowed me to look at both business and medicine from a different perspective, one that is more similar than I had imagined.
Understanding the Background
In a consulting case, before you can decide on anything, even the matter being questioned, you must do a deep dive into the company’s background and anything relevant to its strengths and weaknesses. This is vital as you need to understand what it is the company is providing to the world now and how it came to be what it is today.
When a patient comes in, before even determining what is wrong with them it is vital to first get to know them and their background. Many times understanding a patient’s background and who they are as a person can sometimes reveal what is wrong with them and better help the physician understand what needs to be done. Without that background knowledge, it would not be possible to provide the necessary care.
Determining the Issue
To begin our consulting case, we first decide on what the dilemma is. After speaking in depth with the company you decide on what the company wants to do and what the issue is that is being determined. This is done by analyzing who the company is wanting to provide services or goods to, what needs to be done to serve the who, and why the company believes that this is the right next step.
Now translating this step into medicine, it is clear that it is very similar to how one might work up a patient. Similar to the consulting case, you first have to find what the issue is or diagnosis for what the patient is experiencing.
Working out your Options
After fully formulating the dilemma at hand, the next step is to decide on what options there are to address the issue. In terms of the consulting case, this step involves determining the market options to expand the company’s services or goods. In order to determine the options it is necessary to thoroughly research each location and create a SWOT analysis to understand what the benefits and possible threats are to each location.
On a similar path, after making a diagnosis for a patient the next necessary step is to determine what form or option of treatment is best. This at many times is similar to the consulting case as you are working through the risks and benefits of each treatment in order to determine which is the best option for the patient.
Formulating Final Decision
Taking what you have learned from the extensive SWOT analysis of each market, the next step in the consulting case is formulating your opinion on which market will be the best for the company. This also involves analyzing which global strategy and entry mode would allow for the most success for the company to expand to the decided-upon market. Additionally, you must decide how the company also should organize its human resource management and any other details needed to be decided upon for the company to flourish in its new location.
After going through the options of treatment and choosing the best one, the physician needs to then determine what needs to be done for the patient to receive this treatment. This could be booking an OR for surgery, prescribing medicine, or developing a detailed treatment plan.
Finalizing the Case
The final step of the consulting case process is finalizing your overall report on the consulting case and determining when is the best time for a company to expand into the decided-upon market. At times the company will have a preference for a time that it can expand but sometimes the team will have to analyze the company’s economic status and market location status and determine what time of entry is best.
On the other hand, we see a similarity in the finalizing of a patient case as the final step is writing up a full chart for the patient and their treatment and then deciding when the treatment should take place.
In all, the similarities between the consulting case process and the process of treating a patient are evident and important to note. This consulting experience is one that I will take through my path to becoming a leader in medicine and the business world and it is one that has provided me with the opportunity to work through a dilemma and see it all the way to the end.
Perry, J., Mobley, F., & Brubaker, M. (2021, August 31). Most doctors have little or no management training, and that’s a problem. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved December 16, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2017/12/most-doctors-have-little-or-no-management-training-and-thats-a-problem
Health, L. (2021). Why are more hospital executives pursuing M-degrees? HealthLeaders Media. Retrieved December 16, 2022, from https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/strategy/why-are-more-hospital-executives-pursuing-m-degrees#:~:text=Currently%2C%20one%2Dthird%20of%20physician,executive%20respondents%20have%20an%20MBA
Short Bio:
Sophia Dunkin is a Northeastern undergraduate student studying Health Sciences and Business Administration. Originally from Colorado, she is looking to attend Medical School and later become a physician executive in the future.
