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The nation’s first doctoral program in executive management and leadership for executive level leaders in health service organizations will graduate its first class today, May 21.

Seventeen students, representing 11 states, will earn the Doctor of Health Administration degree and participate in MUSC’s commencement ceremony on the Charleston campus.

Included in this first class are CEOs, CFOs and CIOs of health care organizations and systems as well as an Army reserve brigadier general renowned for her work in bioterrorism.

“Traditionally health administration education programs offer master’s level training designed for students at the entry level and early stage of their health care careers,” said James A. Johnson, Ph.D., professor and program director. “There have been no specialized degree-granting education programs to meet the needs of our country’s leaders in the field of health care. Our program fills this void. We strive to meet the intellectual and career development needs of senior health care and health policy executives who are actively engaged as leaders in health services organization. These leaders are facing unprecedented changes in the way health care is delivered to all Americans.”

Robert S. Curtis, president and CEO of Cardinal Health System in Muncie, Ind., a member of the first graduating class said of the program: “This educational opportunity at this stage of my career provided me with a new perspective from which to view the challenges of my position, to question the traditional, and to generate new, and often original ideas, that are desperately needed in our industry. The DHA Program at the Medical University of South Carolina should be viewed as the continuation of a lifelong learning experience that will elevate the participants to the next level of professional development, no matter what their position is in the delivery of health care.”

The program consists of two years of formal course work held during summer sessions and four-day weekend sessions every seven weeks during the school year.

The faculty includes some of the nation’s top leaders and educators in health care fields.

Included are Arnold D. Kaluzney, Ph.D., professor of health administration and director of the Public Health Leadership Program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and William O. Cleverley, Ph.D., professor of health services administration at The Ohio State University and managing director of the Center for Healthcare Industry Performance Studies.

Papers and other required assignments are completed during periods of home study between sessions. During the period of off-campus study, individual class websites and E-mail facilitates communication between the executive participants and faculty. Plans are under way for desktop video teleconferencing for next year’s class.

The third year of the program is devoted to individual, supervised doctoral project research. Dissertation topics of members of this first class include medical fraud, the high cost of defensive medicine and physician, hospital collaboration.

Included in the summer program is a week-long summer institute in Washington, D.C., where participants meet with high level officials from Congress, the Health Care Finance Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Healthcare Policy Research. Students also interact with representatives of interests groups, the Washington Post and National Public Radio.

A second summer program emphasizes international health and takes place in Geneva, where students meet with World Health Organization officials and interact with top scientists and policy makers in the international health arena.

Kurt Komlos, DHA program manager said “Through my close involvement by sitting in and monitoring each session, as well as interactions with students and faculty, it is clear that we have put together an innovative program that contributes significantly to the delivery of higher education for health care leaders nationally, as well as internationally. We have already admitted our second class, and have attracted our first international student who commutes from France.”