By Megan Burns, IMAGE Magazine

25th Apr 2023 - With the deadline for this year’s applications fast approaching, current IMAGE Smurfit Scholar Dr Eimear O'Reilly shares how the Modular Executive MBA has already taught her valuable lessons she can apply to her day to day work, and has opened up her options for the future.

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. 

“There hasn’t been anything we’ve learnt on the course that I haven’t been able to apply in my work.”

“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. 

Read the full article on IMAGE Magazine here.