Doctors who want to transition into non-clinical jobs often don't know where to begin. There are many physicians and health care professionals who want to find non-clinical jobs- for a variety of reasons. The following steps can make that transition happen smoothly.

1. Evaluate why you want to get out of clinical medicine. Each doctor has a unique story. Start by evaluating current goals. Some doctors want more money, some want more recognition, some crave free time, and some want new challenges. You can use Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine to identify your goals. You must remember - your own personal goals are valid and worthy of follow through. Identify your goals and be proud of your career goals.

2. Learn about the options in the non-clinical world. There are many important roles for doctors in health care besides patient care. Non-clinical jobs for doctors is a catch-all label that covers a wide array of choices. Explore the resources around you to find out as much as you can about the different options and what to expect in terms of salary, time commitment, work environment, and future prospects for promotion. There are also opportunities completely outside of healthcare that you can excel at. You can find a substantial amount of useful information here on nonclinicaldoctors.com and there are useful links to help you find other online resources as well.

3. Match your goals to the available career options. Find the right fit for you. Narrow your career search to focus on the jobs that suit your current, and possibly future, career goals. You might decide to stay in the medical field in a job that does not involve as much patient care as your current job, you might decide to leave patient care completely, or you might even decide to leave medicine completely. These physician success stories can help you get an idea of the day to day life of a non-clinical physician.

4. Learn about about the right approaches you need to take for the jobs that fit your goals. Become an expert at understanding the ins and outs of your future career. Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine provides you with thorough insight into non-clinical job opportunities and shows you in detail how to get the job. I did all the research for you, so you don't have to. If your only complaint is that I have provided too much direction and insight- then I have done my job- because I want to provide you with as much guidance as you could ever need!

5. Get a game plan going by making a schedule. The job search process is outlined for you in Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine. Get started. Follow through and you will find the job you want.

6. Accept a good job and continue to prove to yourself and others that you are an asset. Doctors can succeed in a variety of non-clinical fields. When doctors thrive on the non-clinical world, there are many winners, including the health care delivery system as a whole.

If you decide at any time throughout this process that you want to stay in clinical medicine, but you think you need to make some changes to your current work environment, don't delay improving your situation. Your patients will be better served if you are in a situation that is fair and productive. Every physician can and should achieve career satisfaction.

How to Get a Non-Clinical Job in Healthcare
I hear from so many doctors who tell me that they are trying to leave clinical medicine and can't seem to get a job outside of direct patient care. Sometimes, a physician looking to make a transition outside of patient care needs to acquire just a few additional qualifications to become a strong candidate for the job. It is important to make yourself the best candidate you can be for the non-clinical positions that you want to apply for, and you can do that by devoting a reasonable amount of time and attention to the process.

Below are a few examples of common non-clinical careers for doctors and what you need to do to get there.

Research
If you want to work as a lead researcher in a pharmaceutical company, you need to gain demonstrable research experience. You can do this in a university setting as a post-doc or in an entry level position at a pharmaceutical company or a government research organization that trains scientific investigators.

Business
If you want to work in the business side of medicine, either on the payer side or on the administrative side, you can start by joining a hospital committee or by taking your specialty organization courses on medical finance. Some doctors choose to take the MBA route. All of these strategies can work.  Learn how you can better understand the business and/or regulatory side of medicine here.
 
Leadership
If your objective is to become a leader, you need to start by demonstrating that you can lead. Surprisingly, this doesn't mean that you should demonstrate that you know how to intimidate people or boss them around. You need to start by making things work within your professional environment- and that means making agreements happen and making things run smoothly.
 
Medical writing
In order to be paid to write, you have to prove that you can write well. This is a tough area to break into, but you can begin by working on a team to write an academic paper for a peer reviewed journal or by submitting an article to an online blog. You cannot expect to be paid to write until you have demonstrated that your writing is good enough for a company to pay you to write for them. You can get started by submitting an article to nonclinicaldoctors.com to see how an audience responds to your writing and also to use the article as a writing sample if you apply for a writing job.
 
Medical review
The world of utilization review is becoming more regulated. Clinical practice or previous work on specialty guidelines is often an unofficial prerequisite for this type of work. A medical license or board certification is typically a requirement for medical review work

Applying for a non-clinical job should not be stressful. Be prepared to devote some time and energy to learning about non-clinical jobs before you apply. A knowledgeable applicant is the strongest applicant.
Once you know the qualifications a doctor needs to get a non-clinical job, be honest with yourself-are you a strong candidate?
There are several ways to figure out if you are a strong candidate. You can try to find a recruiter to ask directly. I have known several recruiters who are willing to give a look to a CV and give thoughtful feedback.
To figure out some answers about your qualification for non-clinical jobs on your own, you can search for the companies that hire doctors for the type of job you want. (Find some links to companies here. ) Take the time to read each organization’s mission statements and what they expect to achieve. Look through the biographies of members of their leadership team, and review the qualifications of the people who hold the job you aspire to. Then honestly ask yourself- 'where do I stack up?'
At this point, you can decide whether you are ready or whether you need to take some time to build up your qualifications.
Making yourself a strong candidate
To build your qualifications for the non-clinical job you want, you need to be purposeful in your approach. You need to establish skills or qualifications if you don't have them already.
The biggest mistake doctors make when applying for non-clinical jobs is saying, "I can do any job." Find out how to avoid mistakes when looking for a non-clinical job.

Your most valuable tool for finding a non-clinical job is expertise in regulatory matters.

When I hear from doctors who are looking for good non-clinical jobs, physicians often include a list of positive attributes such as 'I work well with others,' 'I am eager to learn,' or 'I have a strong interest in starting my own business.'

While these attributes are critical to achieving success, they often don't help in gaining credibility in the transition to the non-clinical workforce, or in negotiating a competitive salary.

One of the most valuable tools that health care professionals should obtain is expertise. Doctors already have expertise in medical care. However, the current medical atmosphere has led to an overwhelming growth of regulation in areas of coding, billing, licensing, accreditation, practice parameters, best models of health care, patient privacy, documentation and electronic medical records, to name just a few of the complex regulatory matters that affect every aspect of health care.

Whether you aspire to work in an executive or administrative role or to start your own business, a mastery of these hard to grasp regulatory issues will serve you well and can potentially make you irreplaceable. If you customize your own areas of non-clinical healthcare policy expertise, you will reap the benefits of your invested time and energy.

If you are thinking about a transition into non-patient care, you have probably thought about whether or not you should get an MBA or an MPH. These programs are possible ways for you to understand healthcare regulation, but they might not be. It depends on the curriculum of the program you are considering. There are some advantages to studying for an MBA, a healthcare MBA or an MPH, and these different degrees are not all the same. You should carefully examine the curriculum of several programs to get insight into what the programs have to offer and to really formulate your own purpose in studying and getting the degree. 

There are a number of effective ways to master healthcare regulation. The following are just a few of the ways that you can use to attain regulatory expertise. Most doctors do not need to use all of these methods, and instead mix and match these approaches at a self-appointed pace.

* Join one of your more decision driven hospital or university committees (such as pharmacy committee or payer relations or compliance or resident education or CME) You might not get appointed right away, but if you show interest, ask to attend a few meetings as a 'guest,' and contribute usefully to the discussion (or, at least, don't anger too many people) you are likely to get an appointment in the next appointment cycle.
* If you are offered a part-time consulting job, take it. Some doctors turn their noses up at chart review jobs that pay $150-200/hr. However, there is more to these jobs that just money. The experience in doing 'behind the scenes' work is more educational than most formal courses.
* Attend courses sponsored by your professional specialty association. Most regulatory/economics courses do not count as CME, but are for your own educational and practical benefit. These courses are generally well designed and relevant.
* Take a course in healthcare policy at a local college to fill in the gaps of your regulatory knowledge and to tailor your learning.
* Use free online resources. Almost everything anyone would ever want to know about healthcare laws, rules, regulations, payment, licensing and so forth is available online. Here are some links to introductory resources to get you started.
* Consider getting an MBA, healthcare MBA, executive MBA or MPH. So many doctors are getting these extra degrees now, that many administrative positions unofficially require them.

Overall, expertise in medicine is not enough to catapult you to the next step in your career. Regulatory issues intimidate most healthcare professionals. However, a mastery of these issues is a necessary step if you want to attain a leadership role in the medical world.

"I can do anything"

I have received this question over 100 times from doctors in the US and abroad:
'I am a doctor looking for a career switch. I can provide medical advice for any company. I can speak, write, advise, and consult. I can do just about anything you need. Can you recommend something for me? I need to continue to make at least my current income.'

I know how these doctors feel. As highly qualified professionals- most doctors really can do anything quite well! I also hear regularly from recruiters who tell me that they can't easily fill well-paying positions. Why are there so many doctors who want non-clinical jobs while there are unfilled jobs? The reason is that doctors and recruiters often don't speak the same language. I have learned that there is a wrong approach to looking for a non-clinical job and there is a right approach. It saves time and agony to stick to the right approach.

Wrong Way
There are no job descriptions for 'a doctor who wants to change direction, great pay.' Recruiters are very specific in their needs and they are never looking to pay someone to give medical advice. One of the first questions recruiters ask is, 'do you know someone who is a good fit for this position?' The wrong way to transition out of clinical medicine is to look for, ‘anything else’ without specifying what it is that you are looking for. If you state that you can 'do anything' (especially that you can provide advice) you are less likely to be taken seriously than if you are specific and targeted in your approach.
Managers and recruiters try to avoid hiring people who seem like they want to 'get away' from something. Ironically, expressing too much flexibility in your job search can backfire.

Right Way
The right way to obtain a non-clinical job is to
1. Honestly evaluate your goals and professional priorities
2. Study your options and narrow down your choices to the type of jobs that match your professional and personal objectives. Finding the right fit is the most important part of landing the right job. Doctors who are changing direction need to reevaluate their goals before, not after, they start looking for the right non-traditional job.
Each type of non-clinical job requires a different approach. Before applying for any non-clinical position, you should become familiar with the work environment, typical salary, expectations, and, of course, the best approach for finding a job that specific field. Find the salaries of the most common non-clinical jobs in Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine and learn how to become qualified for the most common non-clinical jobs here. You could sabotage yourself by offering to do 'anything' or 'provide advice'. You can use Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine to find more detail about how to effectively tailor your job search for the job you really want. This will give you a huge advantage.