Why should you consider an educational program in management and leadership?
Because management is a difficult and confusing activity, it requires thoughtful reflection. This is not easy to do while on the job. Short courses can help, but an extensive program with experienced colleagues from around the world can make a profound difference. Management is a practice; managers learn in communities of practice. That is what the IMHL is all about. Consider joining our learning community.
Do you have to leave your job to get such an education?
No! Indeed leaving your job would deny you the greatest opportunity of such an education: to go back and forth between the learning in the classroom and the practice on the job. That way, experience is brought into the classroom for deeper reflection, and the use of that learning can be pursued on the job for better practice. The IMHL meets five times over 13 months, each for an 11-day period. Other activities in the program blend into the work context.
Why not do an MBA or an MHA?
Most MBA programs focus on the unique disciplines of "business". In the IMHL we incorporate the traditional disciplines into our managerial-themed modules. An MHA program is certainly about health care, but with a primary focus on the administrative tasks of running a unit or organization. Our program is not focused on administrative tasks. The IMHL program has a primary goal to change the way health care is delivered around the world. We focus on developing leaders and managers with worldly perspectives. Wonderful things can happen when the experience of managers is used to build a learning community of practitioners in the classroom. The IMHL asks students to bring into the classroom pressing issues of health care management and related challenges. There, students help one another work through these issues, using the theories, concepts and frameworks brought by our experienced faculty. Put differently, the IMHL is designed as an ongoing forum in which the major concerns of health care worldwide are addressed and advanced by thoughtful people from around the world.
What will your organization and your community get out of this?
The IMHL is for health care professionals in context. Considerable attention is given to carrying the learning into the organization or community by application to practice in real time. Invite your work colleagues to sit in a session or two, to learn along with you! Model the learning when you return to work to try out something new. Work on a project designed in collaboration with your organization.
Isn't this program going to be a great deal of work?
Management already entails a great deal of work. The intention of the IMHL is to do work, not make work. Of course, there has to preparation in any program. We ask our students to do some pre-reading in advance of any given module. We also write a reflection paper following each of the first four modules. Such papers allow you, the student, to reflect on what you learned and how you will use it.
Why do this at McGill University, in Canada?
Canada is a special place and McGill is a special university. Canadians have been at the forefront of many innovations in health care. At the Desautels Faculty of Management, we consider ourselves a world leader in innovative management education and development. Our program is designed to attract students from around the world but an average of 15-20 countries represented in each cohort.
What can you do about the cost?
We strive to have students from around the world. We have a small amount of resources to help with some tuitions, but we encourage all or our students to work with their own organizations to share the financial burden of the program. Agreeing to work on projects of interest to your organization may help to develop the type of partnership that can achieve this. Please contact us for more information at info.imhl [at] mcgill.ca.
Do you have any additional questions?
Learn more at an upcoming IMHL Information Session.
Feel free to contact the IMHL Office at info.imhl [at] mcgill.ca or by phone at 1-514-398-8811, or info.imhl [at] mcgill.ca (book a virtual meeting).
The IMHL has an alliance with the Canadian College of Health Leaders.
McGill University is on land which long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. We acknowledge and thank the diverse Indigenous people whose footsteps have marked this territory on which peoples of the world now gather.
