As a founding member of NorthCrest Orthopaedics, Dr. George Dahir helped build a specialty practice that has earned a number of quality awards and boasts of offering the highest-quality, lowest-priced total joint replacements in Tennessee. Since 1998, he has also served as an orthopedic surgeon on the staff of NorthCrest Medical Center in Springfield. But as he reached the middle of his career, George also found that, although he occupied a position of medical leadership, he was not prepared to tackle the management issues that had become part of his responsibilities as a partner in a medical group. Through the MMHC program at Vanderbilt, he developed the strong knowledge of business, economics, and finance he had previously lacked.

Looking back, Dr. Dahir still relishes the knowledge he gained from faculty and other students, as well as the network of contacts he made in medicine, insurance, business, and leadership. “But the most important skill I have gained,” he says, “is to think of my field in an entirely different way.”

When he completed the program, he believed that the new way of thinking would be important in helping his practice and hospital thrive, and time has proven him right. Since then, the orthopedic group he helped found has grown to three locations and includes two physician assistants and a family nurse practitioner.

My experience in this program has encouraged me to be bold with my next job.