Coming Soon to a Hospital Near You, Via UCI: Dr. MBA

More than ever, money and medicine go hand in hand these days.

This fall, UC Irvine is joining other trendy medical schools that aim to instill students with a little business savvy before sending them off into the increasingly competitive health-care industry.

UCI is starting a new six-year program in which students would spend the first two years in its College of Medicine, the next two at its Graduate School of Management, and the last two finishing med school. Graduates would emerge with MD and MBA degrees.

The school promises to accept only about five of “the most gifted and motivated” applicants a year into the new program. It’s targeting those with ambitions of becoming “physician administrators.”

“This isn’t for somebody who wants a better understanding of business to run their own practice. This is for somebody who is committed to a career as a physician executive,” says Alberto Manetta, the university’s dean of medical education.

Where does he expect the successful grad might end up?

Possibly at the top of some big government agency--or a company like PacifiCare Health Systems Inc.