The University of Miami School of Business Administration has gained national recognition for the strength of its executive and other education programs for health sector professionals. In April 2010, the school’s Executive MBA in Health Sector Management and Policy program, which has been offered for nearly 35 years, was ranked the number five MBA program for physician-executives in the United States by Modern Healthcare magazine. The program continues to grow as demand for those with advanced business knowledge and management skills grows in the health sector. The most recent class is the largest ever, with nearly 40 participants.

Steven Ullmann (right), director of programs in health sector management and policy at the University of Miami School of Business Administration, with participants in the School’s long-running Executive MBA program for physicians and other health professionals.
“The health care sector makes up more than 16 percent of all economic activity in the U.S. and is expected to grow more than 20 percent over the next eight years," said Steven Ullmann, director of the School’s programs in health sector management and policy. "As the population ages and as there is more and more focus on improving quality and efficiency while controlling costs, the demand for highly-trained managers in the health sector will continue to grow.”
 
The University of Miami program is the only health sector MBA program in Florida to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME), the premier accrediting body for health care management programs. The program begins in January each year, with classes meeting one weekend each month for 23 months. Participants include physicians and other highly experienced health care professionals working in group practices, hospitals, government agencies, biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, insurance companies, and managed care organizations, and medical device companies. On average, participants have 15 years of work experience.
 
Mayda Antun, the CEO of CAC-Florida Medical Centers, is among the many physician executives who have graduated from the program. She began her medical career as a staff physician with the Miami-Dade County multi-specialty medical group and over the next decade took on a number of increasingly important clinical and leadership roles including chief medical officer for Ramsay HMO, a publicly traded company.
 
“As an administrator, I saw an opportunity to do things better and still make a difference in patients’ lives,” says Antun, who was steered toward the Executive MBA program by her company’s CEO at the time, another graduate of the program. After earning her MBA, Antun worked in executive positions at several other organizations and then returned to CAC.
 
“The program gave me a different perspective on the business of health care- what goes on in the back room,” says Antun. “I really don’t think I’d be where I am if it wasn’t for the MBA.”
 
In addition to the Executive MBA program, the School of Business offers a joint MD/MBA program with the University’s Miller School of Medicine, offers an undergraduate major and an undergraduate minor in health sector management and policy, and provides the business component for the Doctor in Nurse Practice (DNP) program at the University’s School of Nursing and Health Studies.
 
Earlier this year, the School established a Center for Health Sector Management and Policy. The center serves as a resource to businesses and policy making bodies, conducts and disseminates leading edge research, offers consult services to the health care and business community and provides training and education for those in the health sector.
 
The center’s education and training programs include open enrollment and customized executive education programs targeting the health sector. Among the first of these is a business certificate program for physicians, which is being delivered through a partnership with the Florida Medical Association this summer.
 
The center’s consult practice helps organizations in the health sector tackle complex challenges in such areas as process improvement, supply chain management, health care economics, cost-effectiveness analysis, management and leadership, physician process management, ethics and compliance, international health care policy and health care technology. And through the center’s experts bureau, leading authorities in health sector management and policy are available to speak and provide expertise to local, state and national legislative bodies, and government agencies.
 
“By bringing together leading experts and other health sector resources in this manner, the UM School of Business can impact public policy, empower organizations, optimize performance, and help shape the future of our health care system,” said Ullmann.


Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine is taking another innovative step toward encouraging more individuals to become physicians at a cost savings to the students. LECOM has received the approval for an accelerated three-year medical school curriculum for Certified Physician Assistants to obtain a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree.

The American Osteopathic Association Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation has approved the Accelerated Physician Assistant Pathway (APAP). The College has begun recruiting PAs to fill 12 openings for the Class of 2014 when school starts in July 2011. This will be the fifth student-centered learning pathway developed for osteopathic medical students by LECOM, a leader in innovative, affordable medical education.
 
The pathway concept came from the LECOM Master of Science in Medical Education program and was designed by LECOM graduate Mark Kauffman DO, MS Med Ed, PA. Dr. Kauffman will direct the pathway, which will enable physician assistants who seek to earn osteopathic medicine degrees to do so in an accelerated, three-year program.


Thanks to its affiliation with Larkin Community Hospital in South Miami, NSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine will be providing additional residency training opportunities for medical school graduates in the coming years through its Consortium for Excellence in Medical Education.

Larkin, which recently established both a family practice and a psychiatry residency program, is planning to add new residency programs in the areas of neuromusculoskeletal medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and internal medicine in 2011. In 2012, the hospital will unveil new residency programs in general surgery, anesthesiology, and neurology.
 
These new postgraduate programs will be complemented with the establishment of the only hospital-affiliated neuromusculoskeletal outpatient center featuring non-interventional osteopathic manipulation treatments for back pain and other neuromusculoskeletal aliments in Miami-Dade County. Currently, Miami-Dade County citizens are traveling to the NSU Davie campus in Broward County to receive these types of services.


Medical students looking to expand into the field of podiatric surgery now have an opportunity to gain hands on experience and training from podiatric physicians and surgeons at Bethesda Memorial Hospital.

Bethesda’s new Podiatric Medicine and Surgery Residency Program is a three-year, surgically oriented program that will focus on foot and ankle surgeries. This is the first residency training program to be offered at Bethesda Memorial Hospital. The program has gained provisional approval, passing its site visit in September 2009 with no deficiencies. Bethesda will train a total of six residents, with two residents during each year of training.
 
The residency program will provide residents an opportunity to receive hands on training in Bethesda’s operating rooms as well as local surgery centers. Residents will receive podiatric and orthopedic experience, including clinical and practice management in the hospital and office settings. Residents will also rotate in various specialties including emergency medicine, internal medicine, general surgery and radiology.
 
Residency Director, Kyle J. Kinmon, MS, DPM, FACFAS, is a Board Certified Podiatric Surgeon on the Medical Staff of Bethesda Memorial Hospital.


Columbia Hospital’s medical staff recently celebrated the graduation of four internal medicine residents and two dermatology fellows.

Columbia Hospital, which has been training physicians for 27 years, is the sponsoring institution of the Palm Beach Centre for Graduate Medical education (PBCGME), an alliance of Columbia Hospital, Palms West Hospital, St. Lucie Medical Center and University Hospital and Medical Center.
 
This year’s graduates in internal medicine include Joshua Glauser, D.O., who will be entering the practice of internal medicine, Juliana Rodrigues, D.O., who will be entering a fellowship in gastroenterology, and Laurie Lenz, D.O., and Mounir Wassef, D.O., both of who will be entering Columbia Hospital’s Dermatology Fellowship.
 
This year’s graduates in dermatology include Amara Sayed, D.O., who will be entering dermatology practice in Texas, and Andleeb Usmani, D.O., who will be joining the pediatric dermatology team at Miami Children’s Hospital.