A privately financed fellowship model for management training of physicians

This paper describes the ongoing need for physician executives and reviews current opportunities for training physicians in management. The authors discuss existing sources of funding and highlight one management training program that uses various mechanisms of a new funding model that can increase the number and diversity of learning opportunities, not only in management but also in all disciplines where training traditionally has been underfunded. The basic mechanism of this new model is as follows: a privately funded program uses a locum tenens arrangement whereby a physician fellow works in a community-based private practice in order to produce both compensation for work done and funding for training at an academic institution. Finally, the authors suggest that academic institutions and managed care organizations might consider such a model as one means of using clinical income to expand management training within the contexts of their existing academic missions and patient care commitments.