MBA degree is needed for leadership roles in Medical Physics profession

Medical Physics 3.0 (MP3.0) advocates that the roles of medical physics need to be redefined and reinvigorated, and furthering leadership roles was identified as a key focus. Inevitably, most medical physicists are called upon to be actively involved in major decision making at their place(s) of business, and this includes managing human resources, administrative oversight, consulting, budgeting, grand capital purchasing, and strategic planning, all of which are duties that require a wide array of leadership qualities. In an effort to address the need to improve leadership in the medical physics profession, the AAPM Summer School in 2016 provided a focused and hands-on environment for medical physicists who had interests in developing their leadership and management skills. As an outgrowth of these activities, the AAPM has formed a Leadership Academy Working Group on providing resources and course training for medical physicists to further improve those skills. These approaches to improve leadership among our AAPM members are surely helpful, but are they sufficient? In that regard, many of our physician colleagues have adopted a different tactic, and it is common to see dual degree of M.D./M.B.A.. I herein take a notion for this debate, and we pose the question: is an MBA degree needed for leadership roles in Medical Physics profession? To address the question from different perspectives, Dr. Alonso N. Gutierrez argues for the proposition that “an MBA degree is needed for leadership roles in Medical Physics profession”, and Mr. Per H. Halvorsen argues against. Dr. Alonso N. Gutierrez received his Ph.D. in Medical Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007, his M.B.A. in Business of Health from the University of Texas San Antonio in 2016 and was certified by the American Board of Radiology in 2010. He is currently Chief Physicist for the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Miami Cancer Institute where he oversees both the photon and proton physics divisions. Additionally, he serves as an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Florida International University (FIU) Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. Dr. Gutierrez has authored and co-authored a number of peer-reviewed journal articles and has been an active volunteer in professional societies serving on multiple AAPM committees, chairing the ACR TXIT physics section, and serving as an item writer for ABR. Mr. Per H. Halvorsen received his M.S. in Radiological Medical Physics from the University of Kentucky in 1990, and was certified by the American Board of Radiology in 1995. He has practiced in large academic and community hospital settings, including a term as Vice President of Medical Physics for a company operating Radiation Oncology centers nationwide. He is currently Chief Physicist in Radiation Oncology at Lahey Health in suburban Boston. Mr. Halvorsen has been an active volunteer in professional societies, chairing the Professional Council of the AAPM and serving on the Board of Directors. He is a volunteer surveyor for the American College of Radiology, serving on its accreditation program oversight committee for many years. He is Associate Editor-in-Chief of the open-access JACMP.


| INTRODUCTION
Medical Physics 3.0 (MP3.0) advocates that the roles of medical physics need to be redefined and reinvigorated, and furthering leadership roles was identified as a key focus. Inevitably, most medical physicists are called upon to be actively involved in major decision making at their place(s) of business, and this includes managing human resources, administrative oversight, consulting, budgeting, grand capital purchasing, and strategic planning, all of which are duties that require a wide array of leadership qualities. In an effort to address the need to improve leadership in the medical physics profession, the AAPM Summer School in 2016 provided a focused and hands-on environment for medical physicists who had interests in developing their leadership and management skills. As an outgrowth of these activities, the AAPM has formed a Leadership Academy Working Group on providing resources and course training for medical physicists to further improve those skills. These approaches to improve leadership among our AAPM members are surely helpful, but are they sufficient? In that regard, many of our physician colleagues have adopted a different tactic, and it is common to see dual Now, it is well known that there is no set recipe to ensure great leadership. In fact, the sole concept of leadership has been widely studied and to-date, no exact definition exists. However, in attempting to define leadership, people have described common elements believed to be core to understanding successful leadership. Some of these elements have been identified as vision, motivation, creativity, thoroughness, managing ability, team building, risk tasking, and continuous improvement. Although it is known that formalized training does not guarantee successful leadership, I am a firm believer that formalized training has a role in improving the level of leadership quality within individuals.
In the context of this editorial, the topic we discuss is not whether leadership skills are needed in medical physics-as I think we can all agree that they are-but rather how medical physicists come about acquiring leadership skills. I argue that leadership is not solely nature but that medical physicists must nurture leadership skills through formalized training. In particular, I reason that the programmatic approach afforded by a Master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) enhances a medical physicist's leadership ability since MBA programs aim to teach many of those specific elements associated with successful leadership.
A common misconception with a MBA is that the degree is primarily for jobs in business or finance. I, like others, attest that the skills set taught in MBA programs is broad in nature and spans many professions. In fact, the number of MBA degrees conferred annually has seen explosive growth over the last few decades and now averages more than 150,000 annually. 1   to health systems in safety assessments and QC program design, as well as becoming a competent manager of other technical employees." While I do whole-heartedly agree that safety assessment and QC program design are important for our profession to bring new value to our healthcare organizations, I believe that these skills are ones that medical physicists are intrinsically capable of learning, for they are skills that tend to be logistical and analytical in nature.
What I feel will be a tougher challenge for medical physicists, simply because it is not commonly taught in their dense math and physics training curricula, is the ability to be "competent in healthcare finance, organizational leadership, and the 'soft skills' of motivating teams of professionals of diverse technical backgrounds." It is this particular skill set I know firsthand is rigorously taught, both didactically and practically, in the core courses of any given MBA program. While it is true that a minority of medical physicists may naturally possess these skills, I again feel that a significant majority of medical physicists can obtain/enhance these skills through the formalized, programmatic approach of a MBA degree.
As Per mentions, active participation in leadership training opportunities coupled with active participation in professional activities may potentially serve as an avenue to develop these skills. I, however, caution that many of these leadership training opportunities are somewhat limited in applicability as they tend to be "blitz" training sessions with numerous leadership and management concepts thrown at attendees over the course of a few hours or days. In this short time period, it is hard to fully digest and fundamentally comprehend key concepts that are inherent to becoming an effective leader-take, for example, the notion of team building. While a short leadership session might provide some "tips or tricks" as to how to better build a team. A MBA degree will not only teach those tools but will also impart deeper knowledge as to how to effectively motivate that team (such as applying various motivational models, for example, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Alderf's ERG Theory, or the Expectancy Theory) and promote true communication within the team (by utilizing various communication channels and levels of communication richness).
While I myself have also been privileged to work alongside medical physicists with outstanding leadership ability, I genuinely feel that luck was on my side and that my on-the-job mentorship experience was one not common to all. Having been privy to both a MBA and wonderful leadership mentorship, I can attest that the depth of understanding of leadership, finance and management concepts through my MBA studies is hard to be reproduced elsewhere. With this in mind, I cannot help but echo Per's statement that "Medical physicists are well positioned to be professional leaders in the healthcare setting." I firmly believe this to be the case, and I strongly advocate that CAMPEP accredited graduate and residency programs move to provide formalized leadership and management courses to students and trainees. Similarly, for the practicing medical physicists, I encourage you to seek out programmatic leadership training opportunities, be it a few courses or a complete degree, as it will serve to positively compliment your current skill set.
Dr. Gutierrez and I agree that medical physicists must be able to lead teams of professionals in the safe implementation of modern medical technology-and we agree that current medical physics graduate and residency programs do not sufficiently address the skills needed in this regard.
As Dr. Gutierrez stated, MBA programs provide structured training in essential topics such as organizational behavior, management and team building. These are the very same topics covered by other professional leadership programs such as those mentioned in my opening statement. Of course, a program lasting days or weeks cannot explore these topics in the same depth as a semester-long course devoted to a single topic. Many business schools provide certificate courses for active professionals, and this can be an excellent venue for acquiring the necessary knowledge. To build upon that knowledge, one must practice what was learned-and this is no different for an individual who pursues the MBA path.
Medical physics graduate and residency programs can play an important role as well, by building awareness of the importance of these skills for a successful career in medical physics. If new entrants into our profession consider these skills as equally important, and include them in their lifelong learning objectives, the profession will be well served. The MBA can be a valuable complement in this regard, but it is not essential.

CONFLI CT OF INTEREST
No conflicts of interests for all authors.