From M.D. to M.B.A.

Thousands of people change jobs every day, and more and more of us are changing careers in addition to changing jobs. For Frank Byrne, M.D., and Michael Schatzlein, M.D., the career change was dramatic--from physician and surgeon to hospital administrator.

The differences emerge in the paths Dr. Byrne, president of Parkview Hospital; and Dr. Schatzlein, senior vice president of Lutheran Hospital, took in recognizing both their personal medical ambitions and their subsequent shifts into hospital administration.

Dr. Byrne says he wasn't a teen-ager who realized that medicine was his calling. "In school, my counselor said I was good in math and science so I should consider engineering. As a result, I entered Notre Dame as an engineering major. I realized in my second semester it wasn't what I wanted to do.

"That summer, my grandmother, a nurse, got me a job as an orderly in a nursing home. I found that I enjoyed the environment and the work, so I changed my major to pre-med and continued working in the nursing home throughout the remainder of my undergraduate work and medical school," Dr. Byrne says.

For Dr. Schatzlein, the entry to medical school was more automatic, both because he felt the desire and because his family physician was a key role model and mentor. At the same time, though, because he had grown up with the family retail business, Dr. Schatzlein was also interested in business. "I was always interested in business, so I started medical school with the intention of pursuing an MBA in addition to medical training," says Schatzlein. "I soon realized, though, that I couldn't do both in college. That became apparent later in life, too, when as a practicing surgeon I became involved in the administrative aspects of my group's practice. Together, both are simply too time consuming and intense."

Each then found his medical specialty niche through example and experience.

"My idol was my family physician," says Dr. Byrne, "but when I was in the family practice rotation of medical school, I found that dealing with sick children was too emotionally draining for me. I then migrated to internal medicine and found, as I spent more and more time in pulmonary and critical care, that I truly enjoyed both the adrenaline rush of critical care and the personal, long-term relationships I could develop with adult patients through pulmonary medicine."

Dr. Schatzlein decided heart surgery was his medical specialty of choice when he worked with heart surgery pioneers during his medical training at Indiana University. "I idolized my physician mentors, and for me, thoracic surgery was the specialty I enjoyed most."

Once they became immersed in medicine, both say they couldn't then imagine themselves doing something else with their lives. They loved what they did in caring for patients and saving lives.

"I found it truly gratifying to pull a person through their most desperate hours," says Dr. Byrne, "and I found tremendous satisfaction in the ability to care for and develop long-term relationships with patients suffering from chronic, long-term pulmonary disease."

"I loved surgery," says Dr. Schatzlein, "and I found heart surgery especially rewarding. Then, as we developed the heart transplant program in Fort Wayne, I learned that it is more than sewing in a new heart--it was also important to coordinate all the aspects of the process that meant the best care and the best results for the patients."

For Dr. Schatzlein, that aspect of coordination initially pulled him into the business aspects of health care and ultimately into hospital administration.

"I began to see how important coordination is to medicine and patient care overall," he says. "I had always known I was an organizer, and I was involved in the administrative aspects of our group practice.

"However, I realized I didn't want to be at the scrub sink part-time and in the board room part-time. I knew I should be in one or the other 100 percent of the time, so I finished my MBA and moved full-time into administration."

"For me," says Dr. Byrne, "the progression from medical practice to administration began when my physician colleagues elected me as an Medical Staff officer and then as Medical Staff President. Through those roles, I found myself on the Parkview Hospital Board of Directors, where I met a tremendously dedicated group of community leaders. I was fascinated by the 'big picture' planning and decision-making of these leaders, and I found myself thinking it would be fun to be part of making the system better."

Today, both Dr. Byrne and Dr. Schatzlein say they enjoy the roles they play in making the patient care their hospitals provide better for every patient. In their administrative positions, Dr. Byrne as president of Parkview Hospital and Dr. Schatzlein as senior vice president, each find that they can make a difference for every patient, not only the ones they could have directly touched as physicians.

"I find it incredibly exciting to be able to improve the health care delivery system for all patients we serve, and as importantly, for our community overall," says Dr. Byrne. "This broad focus is especially energizing, because I'm now making a difference for the thousands of patients who enter our hospital each year."

Dr. Schatzlein feels a similar satisfaction. "I know I am helping to maximize people's access to Lutheran's services and integrating each patient's care by fitting together and improving so many aspects of today' s health care," he says.

The change both Dr. Byrne and Dr. Schatzlein especially recognized early in their administrative medicine careers was the shift from immediate gratification to long term results and satisfaction.

"In practice, I knew at the end of the day what I had accomplished. I had immediate feedback in the Intensive Care Unit when I adjusted a patient's respirator, for example," says Dr. Byrne. "Today, my results are far more abstract. I won't know for two months or two years that I made the right decision."

Dr. Schatzlein echoes those same feelings. "As a surgeon, gratification was immediate. I made a patient well and he or she went home. In administration, 50 percent of what I do takes a long time to be processed or might not even happen, 25 percent gets done and 25 percent I'm still waiting to complete. The rewards and milestones are not as direct as those I experienced as a practicing physician."

Dr. Schatzlein has, he says, gained a new-found ability to control his personal time, now that he isn't always on call or waiting for the heart match that will make a transplant possible. "While as administrators we work long hours, they are hours that are more specifically scheduled and planned," he acknowledges.

Dr. Byrne agrees, saying his job now is "no less stressful and not any easier than medical practice. Yet, because clinical practice continues to be an important part of who I am, I keep a stethoscope in the office. I also maintain my medical staff membership and continuing medical education, as well as on-going clinical involvement through volunteer service at Matthew 25."