Dr. K. Neena Chima with Professor Farrokh Langdana, director of the Rutgers Executive MBA Program
Executive MBA Program attracts physician planning next phase of her career
After more than two decades practicing dermatology, Dr. K. Neena Chima decided to pursue a Rutgers Executive MBA to strengthen her business knowledge as she planned the next chapter of her career in healthcare.
Although she made major business decisions as she built her practice and had opportunities to hone her leadership skills in the field, she said once she sold her practice in 2022, she decided she wanted to find time to learn more about business.
“Business skills were not taught in medical school,” said Chima, who continues to practice dermatology. “Even though I’ve been in the trenches and built a successful practice from the ground up, I realized how much I didn’t know in the realm of business as I sold my practice.”
The Executive MBA classes have immersed her in macroeconomics, statistics, and business law. “It’s important to learn the language of business to better communicate in the evolving field of healthcare,” she said.
In the past, Chima had honed her leadership skills in the American Academy of Dermatology’s coveted Leadership Forum and by sitting on the executive board of the New Jersey Dermatological Society. She’s building on those experiences in the EMBA program’s multi-module innovative leadership course. The course is a mix of professors teaching executive leadership skills and executives providing the students with insights.
Chima’s success and rich experiences – she was an assistant attending physician in clinical dermatology at Columbia University and an associate professor in clinical dermatology at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital – landed her a place on New Jersey Monthly’s list of Top Doctors for four years in a row. This list is based on the opinions of other peer doctors, of all other specializations. (She is listed under her legal name: Kuljit Kaur Chima.) Read about some of the EMBA program's other Top Doctors.
Chima was 18 when she decided she would be a physician. She enrolled in a dual program at Boston University that allowed her to complete an undergraduate degree while attending medical school.
“I always had a penchant for science and science in the context of being able to do something worthwhile for society or humanity,” she said. “There was always this challenge of combining my interests because I did have more than one interest. I was also interested in art and art history, and ultimately, it was the visual aspect of dermatology that I was really drawn to.”
She remains passionate about the field. “Dermatology is just amazing,” she said. “It’s a combination of medicine and surgery and even psychiatry. It pulls all these different realms of medicine into one area, and you get to do a little bit of that every day.”
There are compelling reasons why experienced physicians like Chima turn to the highly ranked Executive MBA Program at Rutgers, according to Professor Farrokh Langdana who is the program’s director. “The increasing involvement of corporations in healthcare coupled with a rapidly evolving technology and changes in the regulatory environment, makes it imperative for physician leaders to become familiar with the language of business,” Langdana said.
“The Rutgers EMBA provides the necessary platform to learn this language – classes in business law, accounting, finance, marketing, financial statement analysis, AI and digital transformation, etc,” he said. See more about the physicians who have completed the Rutgers EMBA Program and why the program proved valuable to them.
Langdana said the Rutgers EMBA experience will certainly help Dr. Chima reach her next goal. “Her plan is to use the REMBA tools to eventually transition to a C-level position in a large healthcare global institution in the area of healthcare strategy,” he said. “Given her dedication and determination, I fully expect this to happen in the near future.”
- Susan Todd
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