“It’s amazing to see the overlap between business management and healthcare”: current IMAGE Smurfit Scholar Dr Eimear O’Reilly on her MBA experience

For the last 14 years, IMAGE Media has been proud to partner with UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School to offer one female candidate a 100% scholarship to join the Full-Time MBA or Modular Executive MBA.

This year’s scholar is Dr Eimear O’Reilly, who is undertaking the Modular Executive MBA. Having studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, she trained in the Mater Hospital in Dublin. She has lectured in UCD, specialising in geriatric medicine, and subsequently trained as a GP.

It was this move that sparked the idea for her to do an MBA. “Having worked in hospital medicine, it’s a very structured environment,” Eimear explains. “But going into primary care, you have to have some kind of business orientation, you’re setting up your own private practice, and I found that I was really lacking in business skills.”

She says that despite all her medical training, she had no knowledge of how to do many of the things that are required to run a practice well. 

“It’s not even in terms of making profits,” she says. “It’s that the more efficient your practice is, the more efficient you are at treating your patients. You can limit delays, you can have early access to diagnostics and treatments, and all that comes from skills that you don’t learn in medicine. I felt that the skills I got from the MBA would really assist me with that.”

Now eight months into her MBA, Eimear has found this to be true. “To be honest, there hasn’t been anything we’ve learnt on the course that I haven’t been able to apply in my work.”

Eimear opted for the Modular Executive MBA, as it is undertaken part-time over two years, allowing students to work full-time alongside it. 

“I am learning so many new skills that apply to healthcare such as leadership and management skills to look at ways to streamline processes within our healthcare system, improve patient care and manage resources and staff effectively,” she explains. 

The MBA has broadened her knowledge beyond the purely medical, and has allowed her to understand how healthcare systems as a whole can be improved. “It’s amazing to see the overlap between business management and healthcare,” she says. 

“We forget sometimes that healthcare is one of the most complex systems in the world, and applying key concepts from business can help bring about the change that is needed within our healthcare system, from financial planning in order to ensure efficient use of resources, organisational behaviour to understand the effects of people’s behaviour within the  workplace, and human resources, addressing issues related to recruitment and retention within our healthcare system.”

Working alongside the MBA, Eimear admits, has been challenging at times, but she has found it easier as she has settled into the course, and knows what to expect. “The Executive MBA allowed me to work full time as a GP which is brilliant as it means I can apply my learnings as I work but on the other hand means trying to make a more conscious effort to try and achieve a good work life balance. Everyone on the Executive MBA is in the same boat working full time, so there is great peer support from my class too which is a great help.”

While Eimear says she is planning to continue practising medicine for the moment, the MBA has greatly opened up her options for the future, such as healthcare management. “I feel the MBA will be the key to opening the door to new career prospects that will enable me to bring about positive change within our healthcare system.”

To find out more about the IMAGE MBA Scholarship at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, click here. Applications close April 30, 2023, to find out more about the MBA programmes here.