Dual Degrees at UVA Darden School of Business and School of Medicine

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business and the UVA School of Medicine have established a combined MBA/MD degree program aimed at developing national leaders in healthcare innovation, and entrepreneurship.

The program focuses on educating a small cohort of students to lead in areas ranging from the management of health care delivery systems to the development and diffusion of new products within the health care sector.

Medical students are eligible to apply to the Darden School of Business during their third year of medical school.

To earn the combined degree, students must complete all requirements for the MD degree in addition to 52.5 credit hours of coursework at Darden, which includes the entirety of the First Year program.

The completion of the combined degree generally requires five years, including summers.

Academic and Professional Integration

The integration of business education with clinical medicine is designed to reshape how future practitioners approach healthcare delivery. Paul Clancy, a member of the Class of 2026, described the experience as transformative.

Clancy stated that the two years spent at Darden reshaped how I think and made me a better future clinician, entrepreneur and health care leader.

Beyond the formal curriculum, the Darden School of Business provides professional resources through its student-run Health Care Club. This organization offers current students relationship building, educational programming, and career support.

Other students in the Class of 2026, such as Brett Goerl, have combined their academic pursuits with other professional interests, including the display of a photographic exhibit titled Figuring the Sublime at the UVA Health University Medical Center’s main lobby.

Program Administration and Oversight

The MBA/MD program is managed by a cross-disciplinary team of administrators and faculty from both the business and medical schools.

Administrative oversight includes Merav Frazier, the Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Darden, and Tracey Hoke, MD, MSc, FAAP, who serves as the Chief of Quality and Performance Improvement at the School of Medicine.

Academic guidance is provided by G. Paul Matherne, who holds roles as a Professor of Practice at the Darden School of Business and Professor Emeritus at the UVA School of Medicine.

The program remains part of a broader suite of combined degree offerings at Darden, which include other professional pairings such as the MBA/JD with the University of Virginia School of Law and the MBA/M.Ed with the UVA School of Education and Human Development.