I want to become a doctor and open my own medical center so I plan on getting an MD/MBA after my undergraduate education. I also want to work in tech and find innovative solutions in healthcare. What should I major in university and what careers should I consider in order to delve into all 3 of my interests? (I don’t think I want to get a Biology or Chemistry Bachelor’s degree for example just in case I don’t want to go to med school after all. I want a degree that has many jobs available after my first 4 years of education)
Major in whatever you want and get the pre reqs done.
There is no major requirement for med school or working in tech although you’d think engineering or CS might be the ticket. But people in all majors work in tech.
Make sure to take advantage of pre med advising.
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Currently it sounds as though you have interests in medicine, business, and technology with the goal of doing innovative tech solutions in healthcare. So I would look at schools with majors in those areas and then start looking at the course requirements and potential electives for those majors. Which ones sound the most appealing?
Don’t be fooled by a particular title. Some colleges may just list a major in biology, or business, or computer science, but then when you go to the departmental webpage you see how they have various concentrations in different subareas that spark your interest or offer a number of courses in areas that interest you.
Many colleges have the option of designing your own major around a cohesive idea. So if your idea is innovative tech solutions for healthcare, then you could include coursework in all relevant supporting ideas.
These are some majors listed in College Navigator (run by the federal government) which are available at various schools that might be of interest to you:
- Health/Health Care Administration/Management
- Healthcare Innovation
- Hospital and Health Care Facilities Administration/Management
- Health Services Administration
- Non-Profit/Public/Organizational Management
- Science/Technology Management
- Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies
- Small Business Administration/Management
- Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations, Other
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences Business Services, Other
- Business Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences
- Human Development and Family Studies, General
- Science, Technology and Society
- Data Modeling/Warehousing and Database Administration
- Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation
Also, not only is medical school very expensive, it’s 4 years of grad school plus a number of years (up to 7 or so) in a residency. Getting an MBA is another 2ish years that will also usually require loans if you don’t have an employer paying for it, and they usually like to have seen someone who has worked for at least a few years before going. It may well be difficult to get the funding. And if you’re waiting for your MBA & your MD then you will still need to have time to establish yourself as an experienced physician, not someone who just got their credential and doesn’t have much professional experience, if you’re looking to start doing innovative things and getting funding from outside investors to help pay for these ideas.
I would make sure that you’d be ready to get a job at any point after you graduate from college, rather than getting sick of being a student and wanting to stop your other plan as you’re midway through (with the extra loans that will probably accompany that time). If you finish everything as planned, great! But if not, you definitely want alternative options in your back pocket to support your living expenses.
If you don’t want to actually practice medicine or deal with patients, you really shouldn’t waste your time on med school. For now, from what you describe, you should probably focus on getting an undergrad degree in business and add in classes in comp sci. If for some reason you want to go to med school, you can do the pre-reqs later.
Pretty, pretty tough to cover the med school pre-reqs (while earning a high enough GPA to actually get accepted to med school) without being a STEM major.