There is more than one way to be a doctor

As a physician, you are a highly educated and trained medical professional who carries the most prestigious educational qualification—and you have earned a highly sought after license to take care of patients when they have medical problems. Yet there is no reason that any doctor should be limited to a particular career blueprint.
If you want to take a professional path that allows you to achieve your professional and personal priorities, you have a variety of options.

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Medicine Is Evolving
Medicine is rapidly changing, and your career management is going to have to expand in light of the fact that there is more than one way to be a doctor.
Doctors can directly care for patients. And, doctors can also do much more:

• Doctors can run hospitals.
• Doctors can control payer reimbursement.
• Doctors can find cures for medical illnesses.
• Doctors can create biomedical devices.
• Doctors can inform and empower the public about issues of health and wellness.
• Doctors can promote preventative care.
• Doctors can educate the next generation of doctors.
• Doctors can lead healthcare policy.
• Doctors can create medical care guidelines.
• Doctors can manage population health.
• Doctors can enforce the quality of healthcare delivery.
  
• Doctors can shape priorities in the funding of healthcare.
• Doctors can direct the goals of nonprofit organizations.

And that list does not even come close to including all of the potential jobs that doctors can do.

As a health care professional, you are not limited to specific  career model. You can find your own professional path within or outside of healthcare.

Health care is not exclusively about patients going to the doctor to get a prescription or to have a procedure. If you want to see how you can work as a doctor outside of those confined definitions, you may be surprised to learn that you have more career options as a physician than you thought.

After reading the following physician descriptions, think about the ideal work description that you envision for yourself 2 years from now.

 Do you see yourself in one of these physician profiles?
*Dr. Kramer is an ophthalmologist with subspecialty training. She is employed by a major medical center in a large city. She frequently travels to speak at specialty conferences and writes peer received articles—primarily case reports and literature reviews. She has to make occasional concessions in her practice due to administrative demands. For example, he had to relocate her office to another floor in the medical center, and she has not been able to obtain access to her billing and collections reports- despite repeated requests. But, she loves her day to day work and she is compensated well due to her sub-specialty expertise and because of her popularity among patients and referring physicians.
 
*Dr. Lee is an internist working as a senior medical officer for a health care management company. He has recently relocated to another part of the country because he received a  job promotion. His duties include selecting care guidelines establishing goals for physician reviewers and nurse case managers and evaluating the results, as well as coming up with ways to implement a better work flow. He attends at least 1-2 meetings per day, primarily with non-physicians, and he sees his role as a bridge between 'medical talk' and 'business talk.'

 *Dr. Snyder is a clinically busy gastroenterologist who is very active and influential on local hospital committees and boards. A private practice physician in a group of 8, he has built strong relationships with the senior level hospital administration and has been able to negotiate a convenient and optimal scheduling process for his group's procedures. He also oversees a strong financial arrangement at the hospitals where his group has privileges. He has a great deal of influence on the group practice decisions as well as on hospital wide decisions.
 
*Dr. Perez is a nephrologist who runs three clinics with adjoining outpatient treatment facilities. He employs 68 staff members, 7 of whom are physicians. Dr. Perez no longer sees patients and he personally manages all of the contracting with payers. He has had to deal with costly staff turnover at the busiest of his facilities due to mismanagement of staff relations by one of the mid level managers. While morale is down at that location, revenue has remained healthy. He is working on adding clinical research services to his business as another revenue stream.
 
*Dr. Levine is a family practice doctor who works part-time for a private group in a suburb of a medium city. She does not manage financial contracts and has arranged for a convenient schedule and a modest part-time salary. She knows many of her patients from the neighborhood or from her children's school and she is loved by her patients and by the staff, who always strive to make her day go smoothly.
 
*Dr. Pose is a neurologist who has a full-time tenured appointment at a major university. She has obtained research grants and runs a basic science research lab, occasionally consulting for pharmaceutical companies. Her work consists of about 10-20% patient care, with the remainder of her time devoted to research and teaching.

*Dr. Lazar is a surgeon who worked full-time for a start up medical device manufacturer after obtaining an MBA a few years into practice. He worked on the financial side of the company for three years, and was laid off after the company was purchased by another company. He then took a job as the head of scientific communications for a pharmaceutical company and has generous vacation time, works remotely, and earns a salary equivalent to the 50th percentile of physicians in his specialty.
 
*Dr. Stucco is an OBGYN who no longer practices medicine and works as a full-time administrator in a medium sized suburban hospital. She has already changed professional administrative titles twice in the past 3 years, and, while she loves her job and is compensated generously, she does not have a guaranteed position for more than one year at a time.
 
*Dr. Johnson is a PMNR specialist who holds a full-time job working for a national publisher. He edits medical books, educational videos and medical research articles. He also works with several medical schools on curriculum development.
 
*Dr. Kumar is a pediatrician who is one of 20 partners in med/peds group that covers 5 hospitals over a large geographic region. The financial reimbursement of each doctor in the group is based on volume. Dr. Kumar is proud that she works between 10-12 hours per day, seeing patients whenever the office is open. She takes more call than most of her partners, as the reimbursement for call is generous and straightforward, and some of her partners prefer not to take weekend and night call. She also takes emergency room shifts about twice per month. She is very happy with her arrangement and is building a large patient base.

*Dr. Halgon is an internist who has just opened her own medi-spa as part of a medi-spa franchise. She has been adding procedures to her own practice, and she also sends her staff for training in aesthetic procedures. She plans to rent an adjacent space and to add more medical services and a fitness center to her business within the next 2 years.
 
Do you see yourself in any of the above stories? Or do you see a completely different career trajectory for yourself? One of the strategies I often tell doctors to use in constructing a realistic career path is building a narrative. Write a few paragraphs describing your own ideal bio 2 years from now so that you will have a defined objective in your sight as you work towards building your career.

Explore nonclinicaldoctors.com to find job openings, and company links and to learn more about the methods you can use to reach your goals as you work towards making your ideal professional bio a reality. Or use Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine to learn the details behind each type of non-clinical position.

As an added incentive for yourself- send your future bio to nonclinicaldoctors.com today and then send in your story in 2 years to be featured as a physician success story!