Rayamajhi focuses on financial stability of medical practice, education as associate dean for clinical affairs
September 12, 2024
As a physician, Supratik Rayamajhi values the time he spends with each patient, but his new College of Human Medicine job extends his reach, offering the opportunity to improve the stability of clinical practice.
After serving in several other administrative positions, Rayamajhi, MD, recently was promoted to associate dean for clinical affairs, in addition to professor of internal medicine.
“I’m still a doctor by the bedside,” he said. “I’ll always have students, nurturing a new generation of doctors.” The new job, he said, offers the chance to “make a difference outside of direct patient care.”
In his new position, Rayamajhi collaborates with other administrators, hospital leaders, and practices across the state to assure that medical practice and education remain financially sustainable.
Medicine and medical education are under financial stress, he said, making it essential that the college’s tripartite mission – education, research, and patient care – remain strong. All three are intertwined – a three-legged stool, each dependent on the others for stability.
He quoted the cliché: “No margin, no mission.”
He prefers his own motto: “More margin, more mission.” The more financially secure each leg is, the better the college will be able to educate students, conduct research, and care for patients.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the business of medicine,” Rayamajhi said, which is why he recently enrolled in a physician executive master’s degree program with an emphasis on health care management at the University of Indiana Kelley School of Business.
A graduate of the Tribhuvan University medical school in Nepal, he completed his internal medicine residency at MSU. Since joining the faculty in 2011, he has served as clerkship director, residency director, vice chair for education, senior vice chair for clinical strategy, and interim chair for the Department of Medicine.
“I never even thought of going into academia,” he conceded.
Yet 18 years after graduating from medical school and 13 years after joining the faculty, Rayamajhi is deep into academia.
His new position is “an honor, without a doubt,” he said, but it also comes with a great deal of responsibility.
“I’m up for it,” he said. “A challenge always is stimulating.”
And the rewards can be enormous.
“We always have to think about what’s best for our students, our faculty, our staff,” Rayamajhi said, “and, of course, our patients.”
By Pat Shellenbarger
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The American College of Physicians Michigan Chapter presented Supratik Rayamajhi, MD, the 2022 Raymond Murray Governor’s Award for an Early Career Physician for his contributions to medicine.