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Behind the Scenes of an Online Health Coaching Business

During her night shifts, Dr. Heather Hammerstedt realized there were people in the ER that didn’t need to be there.  Not that they didn’t need treatment, but that many of them had health problems that could have been prevented if someone had intervened.  2 1/2 years later, she is the founder and CEO of Wholist, a health coaching company that is transforming the way many view doctors and the healthcare system.  We discuss why doctors need to understand the importance of the health coaching model, what was one her biggest regrets starting out, and how she skillfully leads a mostly virtual business to grow and scale. 
There is so much great info here, you won’t want to miss a single minute!

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt’s health coaching company
https://www.wholisthealth.com/

The 8 Week Lifestyle Medicine Course for Physicians and Practitioners (Save $100 with this link)–

http://bit.ly/bootstraplife

RAW TRANSCRIPT

From time to time I like to highlight physician entrepreneurs, people are actually out there in the trenches actually doing it. They’re not waiting for a double blinded placebo study to actually decide to venture into something. And I came across this wonderful physician who actually was kind of intimidated because she was doing push ups and sit ups and I know she could probably kick my butt. So I want to be very cognizant of her time be very respectful. But Heather Hammerstedt is a physician, emergency physician trained, and she’s actually certified in lifestyle. Medicine, who decided many years ago to start up a business in helping people become better, improving their health and wellness. And she’s been doing this for quite a while you probably have heard her before if you’ve seen one of her videos, she’s very active in social media. And I really wanted to know basically, how she got started and how she was able to take that leap into becoming her own boss. So without further ado, Heather, thank you for joining me on the podcast today.

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I really appreciate it and like I said, I like I am intimidated. So I got to be very cognizant because you definitely are. I saw those things I go, I can you know if I can even think about doing your own health and wellness community. You know, obviously, you know, walking the walk and talking the talk, and you’re in Boise, Idaho, is where you are. You’ve got, I saw the picture, two beautiful children, you’ve got a stay at home husband. So I’m going to take you back when we can go a little time machine back when. So when you were in emergency medicine, you had graduated from emergency medicine residency. When did you get this idea about starting your own business?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
So I graduated from one of the Harvard emergency medicine programs in 2007. And I stayed there for a year and taught and then got my Master’s of Public Health at Harvard as well and started a nonprofit, doing emergency medicine education in Uganda, which we still do, and that took up a fair amount of my extra time for about a decade. And slowly as our graduates have become their own teachers and their own administrators of our program, which is totally the goal, to work yourself out of a job. My role became smaller and smaller in the nonprofit and around that same time. I started like having This 3am moment, every day in the emergency department where I was like, this person does not need to be here, this could have been prevented this person. If we had gotten them 10 years ago or five years ago, we could have, you know, not had to be on dialysis, not had a myocardial infarction like not have a diabetes complication. And I’ve put my hand up for all sorts of things. Over the years I studied Ayurveda, I studied medical acupuncture, I actually got my health coaching certificate while I was still in medical school, all these things that I like, just didn’t, like I hadn’t utilized and I realized that I had all this knowledge and I have this idea of like comprehensive health, teamwork around health, that that I that I could take advantage of. And so I got the entrepreneurial itch about two and a half years ago, and put together whole list which is basically a team based approach towards whole person care figure Hearing out how we can use the evidence behind lifestyle medicine, which is food and sleep and exercise and mindfulness around the prevention and reversal of disease and the way that we access that is through food and helping people figure out what do they think about food? How do they use food? Why are they using food that the way that they are? How do they view their body, what’s their self story around what their body is and how they use it, and really rewiring their brain and helping them use the what and when of eating to lose weight, but more importantly, to get to that sustainable long term health.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Now, some including myself, you know, heard the term lifestyle medicine, we’ve seen conferences on it, but it’s, at least for me, educate me what exactly is lifestyle medicine? How would you define it?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so lifestyle medicine really is kind of gathering the evidence that is out there in various spheres of not just medicine, but of health around the whole food, plant based diet, around exercise around the coaching model, and around mindfulness, and how that affects long term disease. It’s really helping people do the things that we know that we need to do theoretically, in terms of what we put in our body, how we move our body and how we control our inner state, too, and how that actually in the evidence affects long term health. And so it’s not quite the same as integrative medicine where you’re using different modalities of, you know, non conventional or alternative medicine in in the same realm as conventional medicine that’s kind of integrative medicine, and functional medicine. They really dig into the kind of molecular ideas behind health So digging down into kind of the smaller pieces of us that may eventually become your whole body. This is really using like, what are you eating? How are you moving your body? And how are you controlling your thoughts? And for me, that’s really powerful. Because those are things that I think we all understand that we need to do. But we it’s hard to get those sustainable habits into our life. And so that’s what we do at holistic is help people do that.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
And it seems like that type of medicine really fits well with the telemedicine type model. Yeah, you can basically do this almost anywhere, correct?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, you certainly could I do. I do do some lifestyle medicine, telehealth in the states that I practice in, which is Idaho, Oregon and California. But the the primary way that we do this in Wholist is that we use a coaching model, which means that we are kind of holding the space for people to come up with a plan that’s going to work with their life and we help guide them to that. So we have a 12 week program where you can come in and you’re assigned a personal food coach and a personal mindset coach and those two people work on the what and the when of eating and the why of eating, and really kind of get into the weeds with you on that. And so, the primary part of holes is that we’re not really practicing medicine, most of them most of us are just doing coaching around them.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, and I definitely want to get in on that because that’s a question that I get a lot from my students about where is the line so let me get to you but before we do that, you mentioned that you were you got your certification in health coaching, you know, previous to this were you doing that on the side and then decided to start the business or did you just go full? Let’s do the business now and see what happens.

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so I I went to medical school at Temple in Philly and at the time there was an in person program in New York City called The Institute of integrative nutrition. It’s now an online program. But at that time, I would I would take the train on the on the weekend up to New York and take this course. And it was really transformative to me realizing, you know, this whole other part of health that people were talking about that was outside of medicine and all the things that I was learning while I was in medical school. But but then residency started, right and like, like, life does not continue and

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Everything gets pushed aside for sure. Exactly.

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
So. So I didn’t actually practice as a health coach for a very long time. And really, until I got this idea to start this team based approach to whole person care is when I really got back into coaching and digging back into what the coaching model is and how it’s so different than the prescriptive model of medicine and And so yeah, so it’s just been a few years, and the coaches that I have working with me come from all all all over the place. So I have dieticians, I have nurses, and I have physicians, all of who practice in a coaching realm, some of them formally trained, and some of them not formally trained.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So when someone has an idea for a business, you know, they want to do something that’s entirely new. And then you have others like myself, who, you know, see what other people are doing and then have our own, you know, our own USP or unique selling proposition that that makes it unique. It’s often more difficult to, you know, to become, you know, to create like an applicant, Uber that’s completely transformative than to do something that’s different. Did you have like, Did you look at other businesses because this sounds, you know, pretty unique, but you have there was Did you have mentors? How did you, you know, decide get that idea to actually become, you know, reality

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I… winged it.

I think, you know, being an emergency medicine, I’m not afraid to try something, right. I mean, we’re, we’re pretty MacGyver in our specialty. And so what I did was I just grabbed a bunch of people who put their hand up and said that they wanted help with their food and their body and how their mind worked around food. And I just practiced on them and created something that along the way that was serving them. And I think that that was a good model for me, because I don’t know if I would have been able to know exactly what people needed in this realm unless I was working with them in real time. So creating a product and an idea ahead of time just didn’t make sense to me. So I had, you know, a beta group of people and I realized that I was saying the same thing over and over again. And so what I decided to do was to create The program being mostly audio based. And so, in the 12 weeks at this point, everyone gets an audio podcast for me every single day of the 12 weeks on either weight science or on mindset around food, and metacognition, around food. And so that kind of leads them at this point, like as a blueprint through the program, and then they have the personal coaching, the mindset coach and the food coach as a kind of support and accountability to help them use that information and to plug it into their specific roadmap of where they want to go. But that that was just it’s just sort of happened that way because I realized, like, you know, in the emergency department, like if I could have a podcast that I gave someone on their chest pain rule out, like, single night, it would save me so much time, right? So that’s really kind of how the basis of this program happened was just everyone needs to know this specific sort of information and i and i just yeah, just kind of winged it.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I love that it’s funny because, you know, I’ve done some coach coaching with doctors for a while, you know, they wanted to become entrepreneurs. Uh, definitely one of the biggest specialties that come up is emergency room, emergency physicians. And I thought it was because that, you know, because you’re, you’re in a time shift, you have that extra time to explore different activities. But I do think that that the idea about the MacGyver and just kind of figuring it out,

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
yeah, we’re action takers, you know, and like, never know what’s coming in the door at any moment. And so we have to be prepared for everything. And so I think for the most part, we’re not quite so afraid of the unknown as other people do. And when I talk to most, you know, mostly other female physicians at this point about business development, I’m always saying, you know, it’s you just have to take a step. It doesn’t matter if it’s a step in the wrong direction, action begets action, right? And so you don’t always have to know what the future holds before you Step out and do something.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Right. And oftentimes, you know, as a doctor, we certainly are in the trenches here, if you’re making life and death decisions, you know, if you’re undecided about what color your website should be blue versus red. I mean, not the biggest, you know, issue that you have. But, you know, I’m being facetious here, but oftentimes, you know, I work with doctors who just not ready to put themselves out there. you’d mentioned that you had a beta, a beta group, did you initially charge them or was it free for your friends? How did that work?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I throw it out there like as a New Year’s Eve challenge a few years ago, and collected some people for a very nominal amount of money. But I did charge and I do think it’s important even in a beta group to charge a small amount of money. It brings value to what you’re doing. from both sides, like you realize that it’s important because someone else is paying you For your time, and they realize it’s important because they’re putting something into it. But it was a small amount, but I do I do often advise that to people who are starting out, it’s like everyone always wants to do it for free, but it is it is still your you still are providing valuable service even if you’re experimenting on somebody your

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
way that you say that because, you know, recently I posted that something that, you know, I’ve charged I charge, you know, for my consulting services, but every now and then I do like a free consultation there and I hear their sob story, and I really want to help them or maybe their friends. And I would say that for every free let’s say I give 10 maybe one person will actually take action on it. Yeah. And you know, it’s the same advice that I give my pay clients, but like they don’t have any skin in the game and oftentimes, I don’t I feel you devalue your your your worth when you’re giving something for free and they just don’t take it as as important as someone who is you know, trying to get Long are saying, you know, I’ll just, I’ll just learn through YouTube videos or something like that it was like, probably the best way I think is having a mentor or a coach to help you. I mean that that helped me did you have coaches when they help you out?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
So I did not use coaching at the beginning, I and that is one of my biggest regrets. I think that if I would do it over again, I would have invested in coaching for myself much earlier than I did, I just sort of thought like, Well, I have a great idea and I have a great product and people are, you know, being served by this and they’re just gonna come but and I struggled for a long time I’ve invested a lot of money into failing forward and and a lot of time and just you know, working for free basically, for myself. And then I invested into first a marketing coaching company. And then I invested into a business coaching company and then invested into a sales coaching company. And those those serial investments for me over the last now nine months have gotten me from a $5,000 revenue month to this month’s probably 90.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
That’s awesome. I love love to hear that. Um, so let’s talk about laughter. But before we do that, I want to get this question out. So we’ve talked about, you know, there are these doctors hearing about these health coaches. You and I both know health coaches, were making, you know, six figures a year as a health coach, they’re not physicians. But you know, they are very passionate and I’m sure that they get the results and so there has been this. I’ve seen a big demand in doctors wanting to become health coaches. Certainly now with you know, the more people are getting on zoom calls telemedicine because of that What we’re going through right now, and it’s a lot more people are open to education online. That being said, there are a lot of doctors who don’t know what in I would like to be educated as well is what is the line? You make a clear distinction between you’re not practicing medicine, you’re in the coaching model. What? Explain that to me and how did you come up with that determination?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so, you know, you asked six lawyers, you get six answers. And so I’m not a lawyer and I can’t, you know, provide exactly what that line in the sand is for the listeners I can give you my opinion. My opinion is is that it is very though coaching is very different than medicine. In coaching you out are providing information and you you are meeting someone exactly where They are in their kind of, of varying states of ability to understand where they want to change. And you are helping them come up with a plan on how they want to move forward. In medicine, we are prescribing and telling people what to do. They’re very, very different. So I think that the coaching model is exceptionally useful for physicians to learn, regardless of what you’re doing to be able to help your patients make sustainable change, because otherwise they’re doing this while you’re telling them what to do and nodding their head and they’re not going to do it. So I think it’s really important to learn that model. caveat. Let me put my my addition to that is that I do have a lifestyle medicine online course where I teach people how to do this. So that’s not the only reason why I’m saying that it’s important to learn. So there’s that I think so they’re very different. And I do think that having some specific certification and training in this is important for physicians. Because, number one, it helps you learn how to do it appropriately and safely for the patient. But secondly, also has you have another hat, where you can be like, I am a doctor, and I’m practicing medicine here. My other job is I am a health coach and I am coaching over here. Whereas if you don’t have that formal certification, it gets wavy, right? Friends, what you’re doing and when so that’s one piece of advice is that if you’re going to do it, definitely get a certification so that you can, you can say what distinct role that you’re playing. And then you need to have like very clear waivers in terms of services that says what your scope is during that relationship. And so I have very clear you know, papers that everyone signs that says, You know, I I understand I’m not receiving medical advice. This is not a medical relationship. This is forming a relationship with a coaching company. And I think that that is very important. There are going to be lawyers that tell you that regardless of if you know what all of those things that you do, that you’re taking a risk because you’re a physician, and that those lines are blurred, and I get that. I don’t think that me being a physician, however, encompasses my entire being. I think that there is, you know, a chance for me to be something else. And in that case, this case, it’s co holistic, and it’s a health coach. And I think that if you take the appropriate risks to have those papers, sign that be very clear with your clients, and also have coaching insurance and also have medical malpractice insurance, then I think you’re as safe as you’re going to be.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Thank you. If you’d like we can have a link to your course. In our show notes. That would be good for you for those who want to find more information that this is really good stuff because like you said, there’s six different attorneys tell you six different things all six will take your money. tell you that day tell you what want to hear. But you know, someone’s actually been there done that, that that’s really important advice. So talk to me, took me through about whole list. You mentioned that we didn’t really get into kind of the nitty gritty. It’s a 12 week program and explain how it all works.

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so basically, people get on the phone with me or one of my strategy coaches and we sit down with you even before you’ve decided to come into the program for about an hour and really dig into, you know, how you use food, what your body’s like, what you want it to be like, what you’re really you know, what is what is affecting all of that because weight is so complicated. It’s such a hormonal dysregulation problem with insulin and cortisol and dopamine and serotonin and our leptin and ghrelin and you know, our adipose tissue actually makes hormones on its own. And so really kind of figuring out where all the pieces is coming in from everybody. So when we have that conversation and decide that someone is a good fit to come in and work with us, and they’re ready to take action towards their long term health, we bring them in and we assign them to two coaches. One is a food coach. One is a mindset coach, and based plug in every Monday and they start getting podcasts on meat, weight, science and mindset around food. And that, again, is just sort of a blueprint that leads them through those 12 weeks where they really can understand, really the evidence behind how their body works with food and how their brain works with food. Because, you know, I am just really passionate about people understanding that about themselves so that these choices that they make every day, I was less about the number on the scale and more about understanding how Their body and brain works in that way, it becomes much more sustainable and making those choices. So educating them that way. And then having that support and accountability with their coaches, the the food coach, her job is to really, you know, we have an app on your phone, you just take a photo of your food, we’re not counting anything because like, my fitness towels, 100% not sustainable for life, right? So you’re gonna be looking at your plate and what’s on your food. And so take a picture of your food and it goes to your coach and then you meet her on a video call once a week to really dig into what worked and what didn’t work. And if you’re showing up to that call, and you’re saying, you know, I lost three pounds more importantly, my sleep was better and I was less irritable and I had great energy and I felt satisfied with my food then you know that what in the land of that plate is serving you? The mindset coach, his or her job is to really dig in with you about you know, your relationships, your work situation, your relationship with food. The way you use food as a child, you know all of those things to figure out what are your thoughts, because if you can control your thoughts, then you can control your feelings and your actions and you get different results. But if you are not aware of what that story is in your brain, around why you use food and how you view yourself and your value, then you’re never going to get different results. And so, those mindset coaches are everywhere between a neurologist to a hypnotherapist to a physician who’s a life coach. So we have tons of different options to really curate a really terrific team for someone depending on what they need and where they are.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I read somewhere that you call yourself a health curator to me.

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Well, I mean, that’s what it is. Right? It’s like it’s figuring out exactly what everybody what that specific person needs. Because the way that you use food and the way that you use your body and the way that you think about yourself and is entirely different than than me, right. And so we have the same physiological processes, but they’ve been turned on their head, depending on what our experiences are. And so I think finding the right people to work with, with each individual to really get them where they need to go is curating them that team and I have like, a bigger idea for a whole list of like, having little pockets of us all over the place where you have, you know, not just the mindset and the food coaches, but you have who needs an acupuncturist and, you know, who needs you know, who needs this type of kinesiologist and who needs what in your community and try to pull together even a bigger team than what we’re currently doing?

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Dr. Heather’s gonna take over the world first here. So you’re still working though, as an IR doc is all right and doing the business?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, well, yeah, I have been working full time. The great the new news is that I am cutting back Part time this summer which is really exciting.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Right right man being full time mom obviously you’ve mentioned you’re a stay at home husband.

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I do. he’s a he’s amazing. He’s He’s our chef. He’s our everything so you know Wholist and my East Africa work and emergency medicine and Parenthood, we wouldn’t be able to do any of it without him That’s for sure.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So are you his boss too?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I do. I do send some marketing money his way. He does all of our cooking and I use it for marketing. So

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
you mentioned marketing and I’m always always interested how do you how do they find out about your you do online and social media? Is it word of mouth?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so I would say probably 75% of our revenue comes from social media. So I have a you know, really well functioning funnel that I set up that basically goes from Facebook ad Instagram ad to webinar to scheduling a call. And that’s been converting really well. And it took a lot of work and a lot of failure for them to find one that really works. But I would say probably 75% of our revenue comes from that. And then the other 25% is mostly, you know, organic social media work in terms of reaching out and people seeing what we what we do by what we post and you know, what we’re, what our content is in my facebook group, it’s curate your health is my facebook group, a fair amount comes out of there as well.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
And I alluded to the past that, you know, there’s videos of you working out that you have on there, was that a conscious decision? Was that something that you’re really comfortable with? Or was there some hesitation to do that?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Uh, yeah, I mean, me on social media three and a half years ago versus now is like an entirely different being right like I have definitely improved of walking the walk and being vulnerable and realizing that if people don’t want to see what I’m doing that they can just keep scrolling and that I’m going to be my my biggest critic. And so, I just, I just I feel it’s important that people will realize that it takes work to be healthy. And that so I try to use my stories primarily to just demonstrate what real life works like and that means hanging out with the kids. That means it’s riding the peloton. It means it’s exercising in my office, that means it’s me on the computer taking coaching calls, it means it’s me wearing a mask at three in the morning. Right? And so, I want people to realize that like, you know, life is life and it’s hard work. And that you can do it if you commit to it.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
It was funny, I was gonna ask you what a typical day look like but I think he just kind of summed it up. Yeah, yeah, exactly the last two hours. If you were to give advice to, let’s say a doctor who wants to start an online business, look, advice would you give them?

Unknown Speaker
Um, I think the question,

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I think going in with their eyes open, I mean to be like, entirely transparent, I probably sunk $50,000 into this company in the first year, and worked two full time jobs to do it. And the next year, barely broke even. And I think, you know, and now it’s like, now that it’s flying, it’s like that was totally worth it, but you just don’t know that at the time. And just you never know when the next step is going to mean success, which means you’re either perpetually failing forward or you you succeed the next day and you don’t know which day that is and For me, I’m just like super stubborn. And so it worked for me. And I. So I think going into with your eyes open and realizing that it’s going to take time and money. I think secondly, investing early and asking for mentored coaching help, I think is really important. The third is, I think, having it in mind that the purpose of you doing this is probably so that you are not needing to be present to be making money. And if you don’t understand, if you don’t have that goal in mind, then you are probably going to be setting up setting yourself up for another job like being in position where you are needed, right? And so from the very out front, I was automating and automating and automating and automating and just like investing my time into figuring out technologies So that I don’t have to touch anything. So at this point, you know, I have 12 coaches into two strategy strategy coaches are basically like sales folks. And then the webinar funnel, right and, and I have just tons of like, email automations off of that, like, someone comes in, they get on the phone with one of us, we hit a button, and their program starts. And that entire 12 week program is automated to them. And I think that understanding how to set that up so that you don’t have to be intimately involved is really, really important. Because we have a habit of being martyrs. Yes, I think, I think this is not you know, it’s not the time to do that in the online world.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I love it. You know, you’re systematizing things. I mean, you know, I think doctors who they do telemedicine think it’s gonna be easier but yeah, they just gave themselves another job. You know, like with concierge medicine is like I would like do not want to give my my phone out 20 hours a day. It may sound great, but if you’re not, you’re still substituting time for money. You know, you’re kind of almost in the same or even worse position that you’re in. Wow. lots lots of stuff that you got there. I don’t know your employers are the independent contractors and are they virtual? Are they are they in Idaho with you? Other than your husband?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, the whole the whole company is virtual. So coaches all around the country. A couple of them are here just because they’ve been with me from the beginning. They are independent contractors.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
This is amazing. Thank you for giving us an insight into your business. No doubt you’re taking over the world. So we’d love to have you on in future and to see how you’re, how are you doing and growing, but if someone is listening to this, and they want to get more information where can they go what’s the best place?

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah so the company’s name is Wholist so it’s a play off of you know cardiologists gastroenterologist using the whole person. So W-H-O-L-I-S-T. So our website is WholistHealth.com. On Instagram, I’m at holistic health. And on Facebook, I have a Facebook group called Curate Your Health, where we do kind of daily challenges and education and I do tons of live training there. Free group. Yeah, free for free for the public. Yep. And then I have a podcast as well, anywhere you listen to podcast called curate your health, where I interview other physicians and other experts around, you know, health and wellness and empowerment and leadership. And it’s really fun.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Awesome, awesome. And we’ll have links to all of that on the show notes. Dr. Heather. Thank you. was, I learned a lot is amazing. Just having getting insight from somebody out there in the trenches actually doing it. Understanding the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur, it was really educational and really informative. So thank you so much.

Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, thank you.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
And thanks, guys for everything as she mentioned, she just wasn’t being stagnant. She was out there actually doing it. As always guys keep moving forward.

Filed Under: Articles, Entrepreneurship, Interviews Tagged With: health coach, health coaching business, heather hammerstedt, physician coach

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A Membership Site for Non-Clinical Doctors

When I was looking to see what my options I had as a clinical doctor interested in leaving the bedside many many moons ago, there wasn’t much.  How things have changed in the last year! 
However, the amount of info is almost overwhelming and it can be daunting to separate truth from fiction. 
When I heard that a couple of family doctors were putting together a membership site to help navigate doctors looking for non-clinical opportunities I needed to learn more.  I talk with the founders of Clinicians Careers Cooperative, Dr. John Jurica and Dr. Tom Davis, on why they decided to put together this groundbreaking educational portal and what they foresee as its impact in the future.

Join Clinicians Careers Cooperative Today and receive my special bonus “A Roadmap to Your Non-Clinical Career”, a simple checklist to help those wanting to make a change:

RAW TRANSCRIPT
Hey guys, it’s Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD. We’ve got a first here I know I’m late to the zoom thing, but I’ve never had multiple guests on. So with the era of technology, even this 50 plus year old can finally figure out how to do it. So on the podcast is if you’re watching we’ve got these two gentlemen, both family doctor trained actually We’re all family doctors. But anybody is doing this full time and part of it is because is because we’ve gotten into different careers and that’s what it’s all about here today is me talking about clinical doctors, physicians who are interested in other ways, whether it be starting a new job in a non clinical career or starting your own business consulting. You name it. This is why it’s we brought these two gentlemen on the call today they started the clinical careers. cooperative. Have I Got that? Right? I call it the Triple C, and it’s just launched. They’re going to talk all about it, and more importantly, why you need to join it. And privileged to have on the call with me is Dr. Tom Davis. And dr. John Jurica. Welcome, guys. Thank you for being here.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
Oh, go ahead and talk now. We’ve had John Jurica if you’ve been following me on the BootstrapMD podcast. I’ve had john on it a couple times, and you’ve probably seen this man. His name is Everywhere he just shamelessly promotes like no other doctor that I know. But you may not have been from Dr. Tom Davis, who comes from Missouri, I believe, and the whole story. Is that right? Yes, it is your right. Awesome. So I’m a little thrown off by the Hawaiian background, but we’ll kind of figure it out. And we’ll find to kind of figure out what that’s all about. But he’s him and dr. john de rica got together and started this clinical careers cooperative. We’re going to talk all about it. But Tom, I would like to introduce you first I I just introduced your story. I know your family physician trained, but now you have a very thriving consulting business among the many things that you do so Tom, let us know more about you on the call today.

DR. TOM DAVIS:
Well, thanks, Mike. And I want you to know that I to shamelessly promote just probably in a little different circles than other folks. I’m Mike. I’m a board certified family doctor and I came out of my residency in 1994 and joined a teeny tiny single specialty group, right out of residency in rural Missouri about the same time that we signed the first total risk Medicare Advantage contract offered anywhere in the country that was 1994. If you would imagine that Well, I was very fortunate, nobody else knew what to do with it. So finally, they let our little teeny tiny practice, my partners were just very far seeing. And 18 years later, we sold the health system that we created on the back of that contract and others like it to a regional competitor for $132 million. Wow. And I use that number to impress the business guys. But what should impress everybody who’s listening is the fact that for 18 years, I got to practice medicine, like I was trained to with autonomy. It was like the I was a small town doctor, I got to do what was needed. It was like dancing on air. So after I realized that an employment situation was not a good thing, Fit. I decided to go out and teach mentor other clinicians and businesses and insurance companies sell systems and how to do what I did. And while I was doing that, I got to rub elbows, everywhere across the country, I mean, everywhere with a bunch of very, very unhappy doctors. And I also got to see how they were treated. Because when the boardroom door closes, and you’re standing in the back of the room, they kind of forget you’re a doctor. And they think that you’re a business person or consultant in some of the things that I saw. Were horrific, for lack of a better term. And so I decided to dedicate some of my time to help clinicians who did not have the opportunities I did kind of pay my, my, my good fortune forward and help them navigate in alternative worlds. One of the benefits Mike of doing what I did is I got to rub elbows with a bunch of venture Apple types and they gave me a heads up, though eight years ago that they were going to start lobbying the state legislators to expand telemedicine authority. So I got in telemedicine pretty early and created my own telemedicine practice as an independent contractor. And I teach clinicians how to do that as a as a great way to kind of decompress for the first couple years off the treadmill as they try to decide what they do. And now I’m in the I’m also working on helping clinicians start their own cash pay practices through a variety of vehicles. So it’s really just kind of, I feel kind of like Forrest Gump. Sometimes I kind of go where the wind blows. I just been fortunate to be there before the wind starts blowing.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
Now, are you still practicing medicine or is your other ventures kind of taken that away from you?

DR. TOM DAVIS:
I am absolutely I practice I supervise nurse practitioners and I practice telemedicine 10 hours a week. I try to live the life that I advocate and I mentor in that way one It makes me better mentor just like practicing medicine makes us all better. Better doctors, but to it also kind of demonstrates that, you know, I’m not just blowing smoke. I mean, it should never take advice from someone who they themselves. It’s not free. And so I’m free to do what I want. And I’m hoping that that convinces some of these just terribly impaired physicians who are just trapped on the treadmill to actually look up, look around and see what else is out there.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
Thanks, Tom. And I hate to take the spotlight away from you. But john has been needling me. But you know, he’s got a lot of fans a lot of fans of John Jurica out there. And

DR. TOM DAVIS:
Why do you think I partnered with him?

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
They’ve been clamoring…and they want to know “we need more John Jurica!” John, for the seven people who don’t know who you are. Can you tell us in a nutshell, who you are. And interestingly, how did you guys to meet up and start Okay, let me give you my quick intro now.

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Oh, yeah. I’ll tell you how Tom and I met you know, it’s sometimes hard to remember those things when they go back few years but if family physician, I worked my way into my first full time non clinical job as a senior VP and Chief Medical Officer for a hospital did that for a few years, and I got tired of it and I want to do something entrepreneurial. So I opened an urgent care center. And when I did that, I had a little more free time. So I started doing a blog, which led into my podcast, which is how a lot of people know me. And then shortly after I started the podcast, I got involved with a Facebook group called physician, non clinical career hunters. So that’s pretty well known. There’s almost 14,000 members in that group right now. And then more recently, I opened a non clinical Career Academy, which is a paid site course the podcast is free. And then Tom and I went into this new venture now, how did I meet Tom, you know, okay, Tom, I don’t know that I met you at the seek meeting. You might have to remind me but we’ve known each other for a couple of years, we’ve been sort of talking about doing something together. And then you came up with this fantastic idea that we can talk a little bit more about in a minute. But do you remember how we actually first met?

DR. TOM DAVIS:
We met at seek and then you invited me on your, on your podcast, and we just kept in touch and, and we started talking about this approach of scaling, helping doctors, and it’s just taken off from there. It’s all in your partners. It’s all in your partners.

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Well, I By the way, I have I’ve had time on my podcast twice. And I think I’ve just scratched the surface of the things that he’s done over the years. He’s written a bunch of books, not all of which he’s released yet. He does his telemedicine thing. He’s doing consulting, he’s working with startups. So it was a pleasure to work with you time once we came up with this plan. Yeah, so

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
I got up the business because he wants to know more about this man of mystery. So revealing my secrets I gather. So it’s for those who don’t know, I think everybody knows what seek is but it is a contract for doctors pursuing non clinical careers. Now, we You guys, attendees, were you speaking at the event? How did that? What was the situation there?

DR. JOHN JURICA:
I’ll start I was attending and it was I was I was basically sort of lurking. My main role, reason to go there was to find guests for my podcast. Laughing there was it and it was full of people that I met and half if not more, had been on the podcast and then but Tom, it was on the mentors. Maybe you can tell him more about that. And then he’s presentation.

DR. TOM DAVIS:
I attended it. About seven years ago when I was figuring out that I was a bad fit for employment. And then, so I mentored frequently. There’s since and I believe that’s where we, that’s where we met. So it was a great program. I really enjoy it.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
So when did the wonder the situation happened? Where you’re, you were thinking about this idea of the clincal careers cooperative. Tell me, tell me the genesis of that

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Tom. That’s you

DR. TOM DAVIS:
I was just thinking about it. I thought about SEAK. And I thought it’s always about scaling. The last time I was at seek before we started before john and i started this, I was struck by the number of residents. And yes, even medical students that were attending. It was shocking to me shocking. And, you know, secretly does that once a year. And it’s a great model. But there are some ways that it can be tweaked. And really, the need out there is so compelling that and the barrier to go into something like an off site conference. They’re important because they commit you to making a change. But on the other hand, it really excludes people who maybe aren’t there yet, and really might slow down their progress. So it was the ideal scale, and I knew that if I was going to scale I needed someone with John’s reputation and expertise. And I’ll tell you a Jerry Seinfeld story. He was at a He was at a network, a network party filled with suits and he can get this on YouTube when he talks about it. And he just is very uncomfortable in that situation. And in the corner, he spied none other than Chris Rock. So I went right over to him and grabbed his head, grabbed his shoulders at the same time he grabbed mine, we both looked at each other’s eyes and said, comedian and and you know, they were both comedians so they both could let down their hair around each other. Well, John’s a family physician and I worked a lot with specialties and administrators of business folks. So john, being a family physician, even though our product is broad is the point of the broad spectrum. John, being a family physician really, really helped me unlock some of the creativity and I believe that I’ve done the same for him.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING:
John, I’m now gonna call you the Chris Rock of non-clinical jobs.

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Okay, that’s okay. I like that. I should be So funny.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING:
So, so you have this idea and kind of behind the scenes, you know, I’ve known I’ve known john for a while. And one of the reasons to it was he wanted to he also believe you’re thinking about a membership site that you’ve got your Facebook group. But I knew you had some reservations about being on Facebook, even if it’s a paid Facebook group, you want to share that with the audience.

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Okay, this is mine. Right? I had a couple of concerns. First of all, there are different kinds of Facebook groups. I’ll just go through these very quickly. But the two major that I see are a single owner. So somebody starts a Facebook group, you have an individual who may be an expert, a coach or something, there’s something online that they’re selling, and they have this, this group, so that kind of limits the members of that group to that person’s expertise. So if they want to get a lot of different opinions, they have to go to multiple groups, they may end up joining 5, 10,15, 20. Now that person owns That group can sell in that group. Now the other hand you have the group that I’m involved with as an admin, and that is massive group, anybody can come in after passing, you know, a few barriers, making sure their physician and so forth. But there’s absolutely no promotion allowed in our group. It’s one of those large kind of promotional groups, you can chat, you can support one another. And so you’ve got that. And so for me, and other mentors that are in there, and there’s a number of coaches and mentors in the Facebook group that I talked about earlier, they really can’t sell in there, but they can gently sort of softly sell and if people like their comments, they can track them down and do that kind of thing. The other thing about a Facebook group is it could go away anytime. I mean, even a private Facebook group or your own personal group, you know, Facebook changes, the rules, you know, used to be pages were big now, pages are not so big groups are big now, groups have been shut down. So those are just some of the reasons that you know, after talking with time, we thought well, one of the things would be great about having a cooperative and online forum. something of that nature is that it would be a little bit more private, there’d be no way that anyone could shut us down unless we wanted to shut it down. We can have a lot more designated mentors, and we can recruit mentors to it. So unlike my facebook group where, you know, they just kind of lurk out there, and they may or may not show up. And then the other thing about this kind of forum is that you can find things a lot easier because we have designated topical areas and threads that you can go in anytime you can find what you need, you can search on it. In my facebook group, it’s almost impossible to find a thread from six months or a year ago. I mean, it’s just it’s not built for that. So those are some of the reasons I think that Tom and I discussed and when we were trying to put together how this thing would work.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING:
So let’s talk about the clinical careers cooperative. Tell me it’s a membership site. It’s got lots of different forms, what can they expect when they join?

DR. TOM DAVIS:
Well, what you can expect is a safe environment where you can connect With a broad spectrum of mentors that john and i have curated, as well as reviewing the collective wisdom of all the conversations that have preceded you. So unlike other social media groups, the the threads don’t disappear, they’re going to be there. And you’re going to be able to to peruse them. The subscription feature is intentional. One of the challenges with the free Facebook groups is that they don’t challenge you to take the next step free Facebook groups have a role. But unless you put just a teeny tiny amount of skin in the game, you really are not likely to take the next step. And the idea behind having a low but a nominal but real hurdle. financial commitment is so that so that you engage, and then it’s my job to make sure that the environment that you’re in is generating value for you.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING:
Yeah, and I mentioned this on a recent a podcast to that, you know, or you eat a post, it’s like, you know, people say, Well, you can get everything for free, you know, everything’s free on the internet, I can find this on YouTube. You know, I used to do some free calls, and most of my consulting is now paid but I’ll do like a free you know, initial call where we just kind of opened myself up and use looking at and I just look at the numbers you know, and then say for every 10 free calls, maybe one person will actually take action. And the idea of having skin in the game really, you know, engages you engages that person and the other thing too is, you know, you go No offense to you know, on your Facebook groups, but people could be given free advice and completely doing the exact opposite of what you’re what they’re doing or they’re just saying, I’m what they’ve read, they’ve not actually been doing it and I like what you said Tom is like, one of the reasons that you’re you’re still kind of in the game is you’re living the life that you want to lead and If you weren’t, then you would be considered, you know, a fraud. Right? So that’s the importance that I believe about having a paid membership versus free. Any thoughts on that?

DR TOM DAVIS:
Well, Mike, I want to I want to emphasize the point you just made, as I said, previously, the people that are mostly employing doctors and our business types, and they are not looking out for the interest of their workforce. And john was very passionate about having this be owned and created and operated by clinicians. Not just for physicians, nurse practitioners, PA, dentists, you know, whatever the patient care specialty that you have, but it’s run by your fellow clinicians. john and i are not looking to squeeze every last nickel out of you, okay, we’re here because it’s our personal mission to serve. And we’re trying to create the best possible site where we can help you do better and that is something that is absolutely missing from the social media platforms, even the ones that are run by clinicians themselves. They’re not really properly vetted. I think that they have their place. But the cooperator was meant to be the next level where you know that you’re among peers, because as we all know here is that the system has failed the clinicians and the only people that are going to help clinicians do better are your fellow clinicians.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING:
I love it. I love it. So let’s talk about maybe like who’s, who would, who would most benefit from this or perhaps we can talk about what are the topics that we’re going to be seeing here in the in the CCC? John?

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Well, I’ll start the topics if I can remember, have a I don’t have the list in front of you. But we have some general topics at the beginning that are just welcome and just career transition in general. Then we have specific topical areas on medical science liaison, hospital based management careers. I think they have courses when I tell them medicine which by the way You might want to just go in there for that alone because Tom, how many posts have you put in that telemedicine forum? Tom 5050. I mean, he’s put a lot in there and he’s been really chronicling, I think from what I understood what I read of it, you know, some working within COVID environment, pandemic and then just sort of all the kind of things that come up while you’re doing telemedicine, the nitty gritty, the little pearls that you learn only by doing it and so that has been I read about half of those and those have been awesome. We got one on locum tenens, which is a popular clinical but sort of conventional career. Let’s see utilization management, medical writing.
What am I missing?

DR. TOM DAVIS:
medical spas speaking and entrepreneurship, venture capital, consulting and coaching.

DR. JOHN JURICA:
You know, we have coaches in there not only to serve as coaches or guides For the members, but also coaching is an awesome career for physicians, you get a lot of the all the good and like none of the bad. So it’s not i’m not surprised by the number of physicians who when they transitioned out of clinical, they went into some form of coaching.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
That that’s awesome. And I know I’m one of the mentors and can you name just a few of the other mentors that you’ve got participating in this?

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Yeah, I’ve got a list right here, but
I’m going to try and go down most of the list here because Andrew willner is the expert in locum tenens he’s written a book on it he’s also an expert in medical writing. Christopher Loo does real estate and consulting and passive income. Charmaine Gregory I think I know her best as a coach, mostly fitness coach and then I think also transition life transition coach, Maiysha Clairborne I think your listeners know who she is. New and then we got Phil Boucher, maybe you could talk about Phil and maybe also Jill what is a winner because she’s one that Tom has has brought Right.

DR. TOM DAVIS:
So Phil is a pediatrician and he’s also physician coaching and someone who helps people with their revenue stacks and develop different streams of revenue. And Jill also specializes in actually working with with women clinicians and helping them with problems from that challenges from that perspective.

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Just to complete the list besides Tom and I, we’ve got Lisa Jenks Mandy Armitage, specialist in medical writing, Marjorie Stiegler I think many of your listeners will know, branding and online business. Michelle Mudge-Riley. The I kind of think you interviewed her recently, Mike, and I think those are the current ones I was gonna say, too, we’ve we’ve got already others that are asking to come in. And we’re going to try to do some kind of vetting process and we’re not going to be overbearing on this, you know, people are interested in and they’re legitimate coaches or they have some expertise, we’ll include them but we will definitely make sure that you know, they’re they’ve been doing this for a while and they have expertise, you know, before we let them apply for member as a mentor.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
This is amazing stuff, guys. And what’s so incredible is like, I’m even thinking, you know, Tom, I know you’ve been out for a while I’ve been out out for a while, you know, john for the last few years.
This stuff wasn’t even talked about.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
You know, we, I’ve mentioned it many times, you know,
being able to actually speak about this at a conference was almost considered taboo. You know, I remember speaking at a conference where they, it was pharmaceutical Reimann say, why don’t we just, we’re just really more interested in doctors writing more prescriptions and, and promoting medications. And you know, nothing really about entrepreneurship, consulting, even locum tenens, you know, we really didn’t even know much about so it’s amazing to have this that wealth of knowledge and really, you’re not going to find this in any books. This is people actually doing it. I think that’s was part of your vetting processes. You guys are actually doing this stuff, you guys have done it on your own. Now, you know, share your knowledge, you know, with the world and learn and it’s always it’s always something to is it’s continuing to learn this this type of information is continuing, you know, just just about what we’ve dealt with in the last two weeks, right? We’re all we’re all learning in these new processes. So, um, we’ll have a link to it guys, too, for you guys to join up. I know, at the time this is coming out, we’re doing a special, you want to take advantage of it. I know it’s a special pricing that you’re doing. I don’t wanna put words in your mouth but I don’t know how often you’re going to have this lower price. Is it for Is it fair to say this is probably the lowest prices you guys are going to offer?

DR. JOHN JURICA:
I say that’s true. We haven’t decided if and when we will raise the price but Obviously, because it’s a chicken and egg we have to get members we have to get mentors. It’s kind of just it’s a it’s the little startup now so six months from now when we have you know, who knows hundreds or thousands of members and 20 or 30 mentors then you know things will be different. But the other thing I wanted to mention before we close is that to get people in besides it very tiny cost and the seven day free, you know, introduction that they can take advantage of, there’s a bunch of bonuses that are going to be going away within about a week or so. So I mean, we have some PDFs some you know, thing that I wrote a while back but I think the good ones the really good ones are $75 off to an upcoming course with Michelle Mudge-Riley that you know about Mike 100% discount and one of Marjorie Steelers courses, two months to get into my non clinical Career Academy two months free, that’s worth about $200 and then you get the telemedicine mastery course that Tom has been been selling for a year or so to people interested in telemedicine. And I think that covers it that I know and we’re adding new ones, I guess all the time. So you want to get in early just to get those even if you don’t hang around more than a few months, it’s definitely worth it.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
And just just to throw things out to sorry not to cut you off too, I’ll be adding a bonus to that as well. That I’ll be sharing at the end of this call
it’s gonna be something that is gonna be very valuable.

DR. TOM DAVIS:
John and i have really gone
gone as far as we possibly can, adding lots of value, especially as we’re, as we’re kicking off the hard launch. But the biggest barrier to this endeavor to clinicians helping clinicians quite honestly is the clinicians themselves and that this is something that is nowhere else on the Internet, you can’t find it anywhere else. And so it’s important to understand that the mission of this is to help peer clinicians because nobody else inside the system is looking out for clinicians. And even if this might not be something that you’re totally interested in, or you’re kind of in the pre pre contemplated phase, I urge you to stop by take a look, subscribed for at least a little while and help support the site, not because john and i are looking to make a buck off of you because believe me, we’re not. It’s because this is new. And we are in a new world. And the only structures that are going to work are new ones. And so I just asked, everyone’s listening to check us out. Give us a subscription, help us make the site better, and to be the change that you want to see in the world. If not for yourself, then for somebody else.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
I love it. And I think you also
have an important point in that, you know, anytime you’re in the beginning of something, you know, there’s definitely some I need an easiness. But you can help set the curriculum in terms of what you’re asking. And I know, for myself when I have a question on something, and I put it on the internet, you know, I don’t know really know where to go to sure you could go to Facebook groups, but you don’t know who’s actually responding. That’s actually true. I can’t even find half the questions and what Facebook groups that I’m in no offense again, there’s so many different Facebook groups that are out there, knowing that there is a site out there if I’ve got a question at two o’clock in the morning, it will be answered relatively soon, with almost with a team of physicians in a whole bunch of different genres, a whole bunch of different experiences that you can be sharing. I know Tom, you and both of you are contributing and me Answering questions. But you’ve also got that team of mentors there to, you know, to have your back, so to speak. So, I appreciate you guys taking the time. I know, Tom, you’re ready to go back, dip into the water there on the beach. Any final words before we end the call today?

DR. TOM DAVIS:
I’m gonna let john finish up the sound more erudite than that. Oh, really?

DR. JOHN JURICA:
Last minute comments. Is that what you’re saying? Mike? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know,
there is you can go and spend a lot of money on coaching. I love coaches. You can go and just go to the free Facebook groups. But, you know, if you could join with other clinicians in a very low cost, friendly, safe environment, I encourage you to do that. The other thing I would say is that, you know, Tom and I, I know are committed to helping our peers. Get out of the rat race. I mean, it’s just, you know, it breaks my heart. When I see my peers suffering, whether they’re burned out if you want to use that term, whether they’re just taking advantage of the new grads coming out. They don’t even know how bad they have it. And I just wanted to create something that is going to be there to help you give you some hope, and actually some hand holding and some concrete advice and guidance as you try and figure your career out.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING:
Dr. Tom Davis, dr. John Jurica, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom here with us today. If you guys want to join, we’re going to leave a link. I’ll have a special bonus that we’ll be talking about, as well that once you guys joined, this is the best time to join most of us are at the time of this video where you’re usually holed up, now’s the time to take advantage of online education. This is the time to improve your skills, improve your knowledge, improve your career. If you’re not liking where you’re at right now, there are people who can help you. First place to start the CCC clinical careers cooperative. Thanks, guys. It’s been a pleasure. Fun.

DR. TOM DAVIS:
I as well. And fun. Get back to the beach.

DR. MIKE WOO-MING
Get back to you guys. We’ll say thanks again for listening. And as always keep moving forward.

Filed Under: Articles, Entrepreneurship, Interviews, Training

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A Physician Helping Physicians for 16 Years – An Interview with Michelle Mudge-Riley

This is my second interview with Michelle Mudge-Riley. You’ll learn her drive to help as many doctors as she can, teaching the principles that allowed her to leave clinical medicine and setting the scenes to establish the 2020 NEXT Conferences.  

We also discuss what we’ve learned  in our combined 30+ years of mentoring physicians to non-traditional paths. 

REGISTER FOR THE 2020 NEXT Conferences (Physician Helping Physicians)
https://bootstrapmd.com/virtual/
(Add Coupon Code WOOMING20  to save an extra $50 off registration)

TRANSCRIPT


Hey guys, this is Dr Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of Bootstrap MD. Really excited on the program here. We’ve got one of our repeat guests, and if you don’t know who she is, or haven’t heard of her, I don’t know where you’ve been. Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley has almost been synonymous with the word… When I think of “physician coach,” I think of her. We’ve known each other or known of each other each other for over a decade. But just like recently, in the last few years, we actually got together. I was blessed to be invited to speak at her conference, which was amazing and she has an outstanding conference that’s coming up that you really want to take notice of. So Michelle, before we go, and let me kind of give you the bio for those who you know, those three people who may not have heard about you, Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley D.O. is a peer coach for other physicians and has spent over the decade of probably 15 years now close to and I believe, assisting physicians with career strategy. She has conducted seminars and spoken on topics related to change Man career transition, motivation, physician burnout mitigation, wellness, health education and MDMA at ACP, American College of physician executives. I think they change the names on that already. You’ve seen her… She’s written for Physician’s Practice Consultant, Life Physician, Executive Journal, and The D. O. She’s actually behind the scenes of a lot of physician, I guess influencers that you probably have heard of actively coaching them and helping them attain whatever their goals to it. She focuses on non-clinical jobs, and she’s got a conference that is coming up very, very soon, that we’re going to be doing virtual and I was invited again to speak at as well. So I’m super excited. And Michelle, that long bio, I hate these long string bios, nobody even remembers all of it. But thank you again for deciding to come on to the podcast today.

Thank you for having me. We’ve both been in this space for A long time. I mean, before all these Facebook groups and all these networking sites where we can meet each other and do cool things together, we were out there by ourselves. And I think you and I had kind of heard of each other. But it was years before we even made a connection.

Yeah, I think one of the first things I remember was, I like things that rhyme. And so I got this great idea physicians in transition… Physicians Transitions… And you already had a book on there! So I was like, “Oh, this is someone I need to follow.” So that was, that was cool. And we got together. We’ve been on a virtual mastermind over the last year or so. And then what was so amazing was in that conference in Texas, is you didn’t even really know what to expect. And it was, you know, filled out very, very quickly, and we’ll talk about that what you may have learned. Maybe it’s, you know, what have you learned from some of the students because I’m sure you’ve you followed up with them from that and why you decided to do another one? I know, Michelle, let’s let’s talk about it. I know, you have been working with physicians, I would say almost 15 years or what about 13… 14 years ago now?

It’s been 16 years officially since I left. Yeah, since I left. I just had an article in the queue to be published by Kevin MD. And that was when I was writing that I was thinking back and has it really been 16 years? And yes, it has, gosh, what a journey. It’s been. All of those things that you just described me doing, as, I mean, it’s been awesome. I’ve been able to really meet a lot of cool people and interact with them and do some cool things together with them. So I’m grateful for that and the friendships that I’ve made along the way, that’s been the best part.

So here, I don’t want to look too far in the past, but have you noticed things change? You know, since you started this way back when I know personally for myself when I wanted to look at anything other than a physician, it was like, don’t talk about it or, you know, don’t speak about it. And now we’ve got Facebook groups and conferences that are opening up. It’s really been amazing, but what have you seen because as you’re still coaching, right, or if you kind of put that in the back burner of late,

So I really am not taking on anyone new to coach it’s, it’s become too busy with all of the different consulting work that I’m doing. I will occasionally give people some advice, usually for free or do coaching sessions in a group setting for free, because there is so much need, but I’ve really sort of pivoted into providing a service that brings a lot of people together in a conference situation so that they can learn from others and learn more at once at a lower price point. So there was a time when I was coaching for thousands of dollars, and that gets expensive. I know it’s effective. And I think that’s awesome for people that want to invest in themselves, because they can make a very big impact by doing that. And I’ve had a lot of people make life changing decisions and career moves because of the coaching that we did together. And that has been very gratifying. And I’m still friends with many of them, because, I mean, how could you not become friends with them, but at the same time, I really wanted to be able to offer more to more people. And so I had this idea. I’ve had it for a long time to have a conference and I finally decided to do it on a larger scale in 2019. And we did it in person in Austin… Austin, Texas. And yes, we had almost 100 people there, which I was honored and humbled because it was my first conference. I didn’t know what I was doing. And it was amazing. The feedback was 100% of people would come back would recommend it to a friend. And I know that there were some great connections that were made there between attendees and speakers. And people got jobs from that conference, or they networked and became friends and are working on transitioning right now in different ways. So it was just an amazing thing. But afterwards, I was exhausted. And I wasn’t sure I would do another one. I thought, Well, okay, that’s great. We got a great conference, added tons of value, made friendships and just kind of sat back and took a deep breath and waited a little bit. And I have some other businesses that I was working on in the interim. And then I started to get that feeling, again that we all need to come together in this community, because nonclinical careers are very a niche thing within physician lives. And it’s…it’s tough because there’s a lot of fear there. And there can be some judgment or fear of judgment. And so I really wanted again to create that safe space for people.

Now, do you think it’s changed, though? Is it? Do you think it’s more open? Or do you still feel that it’s still a subset of doctors who are interested into it? And the majority of, you know, the so called, you know, everyday physicians are doing more traditional things, or is there more opportunity than there was?

You know, I think that it’s a I think that there are more people talking about it. So it may seem like there are more physicians interested in transitioning to a non clinical career, but I wonder if that’s just because there are are more places for us to talk about this, and more ways for us to get together and spread that word. You know, back in the early 2000s… 2004 or 5, there, it wasn’t talked about a whole lot. And we didn’t know that each other existed. And so that kind of fueled that fear. But I still think that that fear exists now. Because there’s… There’s a certain prestige to being a physician in some senses, or a certain feeling of I’ve worked really hard this hard, I really want to just be a doctor or the people around me just want to know me as a doctor. And so there needs to be a way for people to kind of explore this thought of non clinical in a safe way doesn’t mean they have to transition to a completely non clinical career. It could mean that they just start a side gig or they have multiple things going on and still practice I mean, a lot of people do that. So I have seen an increase in that. Yes.

Yeah, I think that I agree with you. I think that the… I know when I was before and I would, I would do like… I didn’t I didn’t do a lot of one-on-one coaching. I did more like a classroom campus setting. And I remember like spending a lot of time and my workshop just getting over the hump of, you know, okay, you spent all this time and money doing becoming a physician. I know it’s, it’s gonna be difficult. There’s a lot of people that pulling you away, and then really people… It really resonated. And then recently, I started doing that and it was more like, okay, we get it. Let’s find out what we want to do.

And then the other thing that I’ve noticed too, and maybe you… This is something that you have have changed because I know personally this has happened for you… Is this idea of multiple streams of income before it was… OK. Get this non clinical job, hopefully it’ll replace your physician income. But oftentimes, it is not. And I think for now more people have been open to the idea of these multiple streams, whether it is a side gig or two… Or investing. I know, you know, now as an entrepreneur, because you’re like me, you know, you can’t sit still and you decided to start up your own business and you’ve got this other thing here. And then you got the conference. What have you seen with with your students? Have you seen this kind of this, this now… Multiple streams that I’ve seen?

So I do see a lot of people who are interested in that, but at the same time, I think there’s a good subset of people who really just want to focus on one thing. Because to handle so many different things coming at them at once, and they really don’t even want to deal with that. They want to get their life together, get themselves back on track with either their wellness, their exercise… Eating right or their family situation. I know a lot of times, having young children makes it difficult to try to balance a bunch of different things at once. And so what I do hear from a lot of people is, yeah, I’m interested in doing a lot of different things, but I don’t think I’m ready for that. I just need to have something where I either replace my paycheck or get close enough that I can have a better life for myself a more balanced life, but still have one source of income from now. And then I can maybe have the space to look at some other things in the future. And I get that some people are sole breadwinners and they really can’t afford to build a medical writing gig and a real estate gig and open their own practice all at once where they’re not getting a bunch of income all at once. It’s down the road potentially, but there’s risk there and it’s not instant gratification.

I always like to play the contrary. And just to keep you guys on your toes here. Have you seen anything negative about all this, these groups and and talking about it and being out on the open? Have you seen any of that? Or is it is it been mostly positive?

Do you mean the different Facebook’s that are Facebook groups that are out there and then…

In general, just people talking about it more?

Yeah, yeah. So I think there’s pros and cons to everything. And social media does introduce a way for people to get their voice out there but it also introduces a way to bring negativity into the situation. Which can be good and bad again, it balances things.

One thing that I also see is… People really looking for a lot of free advice and not being willing to invest in themselves and whatever it is a real estate course or coaching or something where they are paying someone because there’s there’s a lot of ways to get information from these groups. And while I think that’s great, I think at some point you have to be ready to focus and maybe start small a couple hundred dollars here or there. I’m not saying you should drop 50 grand by any means. In fact, I would be very hesitant to even tell someone to do that ever. But before you’re paying thousands pay a few hundred dollars to dip your toe in a little deeper. Because at some point, you do have to focus and you have to figure out what you’re all about in order for you to kind of move forward and get better at that thing. And that can be anything that can be your own business that can be a weight loss thing that can be again a real estate thing I keep bringing up real estate has been talked about so much. I don’t do any real estate stuff, but everyone’s excited about it. So yeah… I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, goods and bad’s!

I mean, the one thing I find trouble with the Facebook groups are that I’m remember a post and I want to go back and find that information. And I can’t find it. Because the way that the different things are, I don’t even know the algorithms and they change all the time and, and they make different things pop to the top or go to the bottom. And maybe you saw something and you can’t find it now. And so that’s what I’m saying, When you’re ready to really get that information, you have to have a reliable place to go to, so that you can find that quickly. And and you have to know that the advice is real and true, because there’s also a lot of not true stuff that’s talked about. I’ll see all kinds of responses to a different question. And I’ll know that that this isn’t true at all, or this is bad advice. And no one’s monitoring those things because potentially the administrators they try but it’s hard to run these Facebook groups and they may not have the subject matter expertise to even know if the advice is is good or not.

So you’re telling me not everything on the Internet is true. Okay. It was it was funny, I was looking at something. I was looking at something we were just talking before the call. I’m reopening my clinic and I was looking for wipes of all things, you know, in mass. And not only did I not know where it was, I didn’t know what group I heard it was because I felt like there was like a URL where I could get masks inexpensive and I go, “I don’t even know what group I was in!

Yep, yeah, cuz there’s tons of them. I know. And it’s good information. But yeah, like? Where did I find that?

So let’s talk about coaching! Now from what you said here, you don’t have any current coaching clients as of this call right now?


No. So I do have a couple… They’re not long term coaching clients. Every once in a while I’ll take someone on and help them a bit… But it’s very niche and there are certain things that we’re working on together. It’s not like it used to be where I would really coach them from beginning to end of their transition. And again, pros and cons to all of that, but yes, my business has changed and evolved.

So I want to take you to task on something because I saw you posted a couple weeks ago where you said… I remember you telling me, “I’m not gonna do any active coaching,” but then you decided to do free coaching! What made you decide Do that and and what did you get out of that?


That is a great question. I know and had you asked me a year or two ago about that, I would have said “No way!” Because I do follow a lot of the other physicians out there that are doing really great things and you know, knowing your worth is a big deal. You really want to make sure that if you’re doing something you are adding value, so you need to be compensated for it. And I have added a lot of value. However, along with some of my new thought process of wanting to increase access to information, I have changed a little bit of my thought process there. So the groups offer a way for, again, a lot of our smart minds to come together. And I feel like it’s a good way to get information out there. So it doesn’t hurt me to provide what I’ve been doing for the past 16 years. And advice for people for an hour, an hour and a half. And oftentimes others will come with me. Other experts have reached out to me and said, Hey, I’m willing to do this as well. It’s kind of our way of giving back for all the years of being able to, to actually do these things and get paid. So that’s that’s a big reason why I did it. At first, I just tried it as an experiment, because I wasn’t sure if it would be useful or not. But I got so tired of seeing some bad advice out there, that I threw it out there one morning and just hit the Post button. And within like an hour, there were 100 comments on there. And people were saying, Yes, I want I want this, I want this, I want this. So I said, Alright, let’s do it. So we did we did our first session a couple of weeks ago. And it was so amazing. Lots of cool people who have never met me and I’ve never met and I got to meet them and others that I’ve met before were there and so I’m going to do more. I have one on site. Monday with another coach. We’re just we’re going to talk about our experiences where we both thought about leaving clinical medicine. I left, she didn’t. And what are those like? Yeah, what happened to both of us? And, you know, why do we do it that way? What’s our advice? And hopefully people can help get information for their own path and ask questions so that then they can decide, “Okay, what’s the right choice for me?:

Okay, so let’s get to clarify. So you did like a group coaching thing? It wasn’t really 200 one-on-one sessions for free. ,


Oh my goodness, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hopefully people didn’t think that!

Because often times, I’ve done some free consultations and then when I looked at to actually see the results, it’s you know, the ones who’ve always paid are the ones always got more skin in the game and much more often they take action. They give free advice, you know, how much free advice is worth right? So that’s what clarification on so we’re still good on that. We’re still on the same page.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we are but you’re right in mentioning that free advice is worth what you know, I mean, just almost the amount that you pay for it potentially. So there’s a balance there and I don’t know what the right with the right balances but you know, Facebook groups are free.

True as in everything, but I don’t know if I would go to a surgeon. You know, I want to pick the cheapest surgeon. So, yeah, that’s right. So let’s talk about it that we talked about the past. Well, let’s talk about the conference you had last year. It was a success. It was amazing. I know that there’s people out there. Maybe we can talk about that. Like, when it was over and you came out… I know you were in hibernation, because I couldn’t contact you. It was like on Skype when it says inactive You know, Michelle?


Out of the office!

Out of the office, right! What did you hear back? Can you explain what it was? Just so people who didn’t hear about the conference know what it was all about? And then what did you learn from it?


Yeah, yeah. So I decided to finally throw this conference again after talking about it for years and years and years. And I call it a celebration conference where we would all come together and kind of meet each other because I had been coaching at that point for 15 years. And most of my coaching is virtual. And so I hadn’t met 90% of the people that I’d worked with or talk to, and there were a lot of us out there who have been just in different places in the country and never had a chance to meet but we’re all doing cool things. So I called it a celebration conference. It was a donation only type of a situation. And I bore all the risk for the rental of the hotel and the rooms and the food. And everything. I just thought I’d throw it out there. And it was, you know, really, really great. So that was that. And what I heard from people was how many really great friendships that they formed from that. I guess it was kind of like a free thing, but most people did end up donating. So that was nice. I did end up covering my costs, and I broke even for the conference. Well, maybe I paid a little bit, but it wasn’t that I was out 10s of thousands of dollars. So that’s good. Because I don’t have that to be out. But when I was kind of in that hibernation, I kept getting messages from people about “When’s the next conference, we need to have another one. Will you have another one? Are you having another one?” There were posts on the Facebook groups as physicians helping physicians having another conference. And so I just sort of took all of that and and processed it and I wasn’t Gonna do it unless I was ready because it is a big undertaking, virtual or not. And this one is virtual. And, but it was just again time and I looked back and I think, “Gosh, what would have happened had I stayed in pathology?” Because that’s where where I was training and what would my life have been like because that’s what I thought my life would be I’d be a pathologist living happily ever after for years and years and years and wondering what if and “Oh, maybe I should have just stayed.” And you know, so many amazing things have happened like this that I really, I’m so glad it worked out this way. I never probably would have done this had I been able to see what would happen because it’s been very scary to in a lot of ways and risky and you know, people have said mean things to me and judge me and all you know, it happens to everyone but when you’re going down the path less traveled that happens more often. It has worked out and I’m grateful for that. And so I like to share that and share the value that I have, which is tons of connections. Hopefully I can help other people get non clinical jobs if that’s what they want to do and, or maybe they’ll form companies together or, you know, start other things together and they would meet at my conference and, you know, a virtual conference is no different from an in person other than the obvious. You can still make connections, there’s going to be really cool networking platform that people are going to be amazed to see. It’s really very few people have seen it before it’s from out of a startup. So it’s gonna be pretty cool.

Yeah, just remember that only one of the conferences whether it be virtual or physical are pants optional, so I just want you to be aware.


That’s right. That’s right.

So let’s talk about this conference that’s coming up. What is it as things change? When is it? Give us the details.


All right. So it’s a three part conference. And again, in the whole spirit of making sure that this is accessible, and create your own experience as possible, people don’t have to sign up for all three, you can sign up for one, two or three, we have a buy two, get one free, special going on right now for a limited time. And it’s only $385 per conference. So definitely accessible for people. The price does go up Actually, today, I’m gonna give you a coupon code that you can post in the show notes that’ll give people it’ll take the price back down for them if they are listening to this after today. Yeah, just for your listeners. So remind me to do that. But the first event is in July, and it’s really exploring a non clinical career, you know, what does it mean? What are the pros and cons? What should I think expect? Do I need to hire a coach? Should I should I even consider that? What are what are the basic options? How do you get past the feeling of I don’t want to be a doctor anymore. And so we’ll talk about all of those things. And that’s really kind of always the first step with people. The second conference in September is a long conference about your options. I will have over 25 doctors talking about their different careers, non clinical and non traditional careers. So you will hear in depth information about the pros, the cons, the salary, the hours, how to get into things, resources, if you want to get into what they’re doing, and all specialties I mean, I have pediatrics I have pathologists I have family medicine doctors internal medicine. anesthesiologists surgeons, you know, the gamut. Because the the physicians I’ve worked with have never just been one specialty. So I really find that all specialties are potentially interested in a non clinical career and can do it. And then in November, we’ll have a “making it happen” conference where those people who are really, really ready are going to get group coaching from a variety of different coaches. So I will have life coaches there, I’ll have real estate coaches, I’ll have resume coaches, I’ll have starting your own business, entrepreneurship coaches, you name it, and you can come and you can go to different breakout sessions, you can ask questions about your unique situation, you can get your resume done and and your elevator pitch created, interview questions kind of practice and so people can attend wherever they feel like they are in that spectrum of just starting out are really ready, or sort of in the middle. Or again, you can attend all three, So that’s what 2020 is going to look like.

And then what I like about it is that there is interaction. It’s not just sitting and just watching, right? You, you just mentioned that they can actually get some real feedback.


Right, yes! we’re gonna have networking as a component. And people say you can’t network and meet people in a virtual way. And maybe that was true at one point, but that’s no longer true. You just have to get creative about it, use the right software platforms, and really design the whole thing in a certain way. And so, you know, I’d love to hear feedback after this is over from people. If they felt like they were able to interact. Of course, is not an in person conference. So, you know, it’s kind of like comparing apples and oranges. And I’m going to be really sad if people are saying, well, this wasn’t an in person conference. No, it isn’t an in person conference, it’s a virtual conference. But that means you can be at home you don’t have to travel. You can eat your own food. You can attend some sessions, you can watch replays of others, and you can still meet people. And you can still forge those valuable connections and bonds. And it’s up to you just like an in person conference afterwards to follow up and pursue those. Because no matter what, no matter where you go or attend, or what course you do, if you don’t implement and put the work in and follow up later, there are no results. And so a conference is only as good as what you end up doing with the information.

Yeah, I love physical conferences, but obviously, in this time, you know, what we’ve learned. And, you know, unfortunately, though, is but fortunate for being interactive is more and more people are comfortable using Zoom or whatever you’re using for your webcams. So I think a lot of people get this distance education and how you can really benefit from it. So you mentioned, you know, some of the speakers, we want to talk about some, maybe point out, you know, some of the people who will be participating in teaching this.


Yeah. So you’ll be there, you’ll be one of the speakers,
Which will be great. We really run the gamut of different options for physicians. So if you’re interested in utilization review work, we have people there who are talking about their experience and helping those who are interested in that. We have people who are talking about pharma, biotech MSL careers, which are all options for physicians, whether you’ve done a residency or not. We have people talking about medical writing careers, entrepreneurship, careers, even sales. I know sales for some people is kind of a dirty word. But there are some people who loves sales and who are really good at it. And so I really try to have a good balance of these different things because one thing isn’t right for everybody.

Great, great, great and what it was great, at least for the conference that was before was, you know, I’m looking at some of the names by the way I didn’t even know before, and you have such an extensive Rolodex of people and I got to introduce myself to a number of them that I still connect with to this day. So, you know, thank you for putting on such a wide variety of different experiences and even things I never even you know heard about that what you could do for generating your own income. So we got that we got the lake Who is this ideally for like, who is the who would benefit the most from this?


Yeah, the people that benefit the most from this conference are those who are thinking about a non clinical career, you don’t have to be actively pursuing one. But those people who are actively pursuing one, this is kind of an ideal fit, because you really get to know all your options, maybe even options you haven’t considered. And you get to take steps towards making that your reality and knowing what it takes to get into a certain field. So that’s why I divided the conference into three different events really, so that I could be a value to those who are just dipping their toe in the water curious Maybe not ready yet, but just want to know more. And then those people who are like, ready, but I may have missed an option or I just am not able to get into something. what’s what’s going on what, you know, what are options I may not have considered or what is there something that I’m not seeing that maybe I can modify or pivot on and then that’ll make all the difference? Because sometimes that’s it. I mean, I know people, one person who’s speaking and tried for six to eight months to get an MSL role and those are, they’re tough, but this guy is awesome. He speaks to people really well. He comes across well, that just wasn’t happening. We made a couple tweaks on his resume, boom, he got the job. So sometimes it’s as easy as that. You never know.

What I love with the work that you’re doing is you can really tell that you really do care about doctors, helping them where they’re at. Putting on a conference, you know, just kind of see if it’s gonna work or not spending thousands of dollars. You know, you’re not getting rich from this, I think, you know, there’s no art to your motive, it’s just helping other doctors getting to where they need to be. And really what it’s all about is we need to be helping our fellow physician because really, nobody really helping us. They do it, you know. And that’s what I love what you’re doing. It comes from a place of love and respect, and just helping one another. Maybe the title says it itself, Physicians Helping Physicians. That’s what it’s all about. Michelle, any last words of advice before we end the call today?


I would just say, if you’re if you’ve even thought about a non clinical career, and you’re not sure what it means, or what it might mean for you, at least check this out. It’s something that doesn’t go away for people. If you have that interest or just that intrigue you really have to explore it. And maybe then you find it isn’t for you and that’s okay and you find what’s better for you that’s great. But if you have that spark of you know “Something isn’t quite right I want to explore something else. I’m not sure what that is or what that looks like.” Come start exploring because that’s the only way to to get to the other side and find out what it is that you’re looking for. I know people have come to me after years they say of either looking at my website or following these different things or lurking on Facebook groups or knowing about a lot of us out there but not really doing anything. Just do it just jump in and see. Spend a couple hundred dollars and if it isn’t right for you, then you know at that point and you can move on and if it is, then you can kind of start honing in on what it is that is best fit for you.

Really great words of advice. One thing I just want to add to it is that, I didn’t get to be where I am, if I did it all by myself. It required somebody to help me a mentor, a colleague to get me where I am. And it doesn’t matter if it’s another business, it doesn’t matter if it’s a non clinical job, it’s who you know, or more money, who knows you. And that’s why I’ve always felt conferences, whether it be physical or virtual, is really the key to success, I believe, to getting to where you want I know as as doctors, we’re used to being the decision makers, everything falls on us. We don’t want you know, it’s considered weakness if we asked for help, but I know you didn’t get to be where you are. I need to be where I am. All your speakers didn’t get to be where they are just because we knew somebody and it’s just this added synergy of people helping another really is what gets us to where we want to be.


Thank you Michelle. I know you’re busy with your move and conference and the kids and your other businesses. So let’s get back to your to do list for today. Thank you so much for Sharing. And as always guys don’t become stagnant. Keep moving forward.

Filed Under: Articles, Entrepreneurship, Interviews Tagged With: michelle mudge-riley

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Is it Still Worth It to Become a Med Spa Owner?

The short answer is YES!  But it’s not for everybody.  If you’re willing to take risks are part of being an entrepreneur, it can pay you back hundredfold.

You may have seen my guest recently with her informative COVID-19 video that went viral, seen by over millions of people and most likely helped save thousands of lives. Although some may know her as the sister of Congresswoman Katie Porter, Emily Porter MD is an accomplished board-certified emergency room physician who made the decision to becoming her own boss, launching her own medical spa. On this episode, we discuss what it took to start her own business, how her upbringing led to fulfill her entrepreneurship dreams, and the challenges of running a wellness practice in the age of Coronavirus.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another episode of Bootstrap MD. We’ve got a great treat on the call. I’ve been following this woman for months not in a stalker weirdo way, but just seeing what she’s been doing, and just seeing doing some amazing things. She’s Dr. Emily Porter. She’s the Austin Love Doctor. She’s a board certified emergency room doctor with 10 years of experience working in emergency rooms and then just started her own aesthetics practice in the area of Austin, Texas, Leander Texas to be specific.

 

She has been one of those people whose been out there doing it. She’s all about helping other doctors and learning from them. I’ve been seeing her in some of the calls that we’re at. We’re both involved in a type of a practice that involves PRP and using it for things like the O-Shot and B-Shot and she’s been just tremendous in helping other doctors. I wanted to get on the call, because it’s all about letting you guys know who are out there actually making a difference and being a role model for other physicians who wanted to start their own practice.

 

So without further ado, Dr. Emily Porter. Emily, so glad to have you on the call today.

 

Thanks for having me. I’m so honored. I love this. I’m a talker, so ask away.

 

Yes. I’ve learned that very, very quickly. You got some really good information and a lot of good information for our listeners to share. I gave a little bit, a brief bio out there for the folks just to get an idea, but tell me your story. How did the ER doctor become the Austin Love Doctor?

 

Yeah, so I won’t get in to how I became an ER doctor, but let’s just say that I became very unhappy in the emergency room, which I never thought would happen. Everyone knows the story of the circumstances of corporate mergers, and patient satisfaction over things that you have no control, and opioid epidemic and things. I also became a mother around the same time, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with that. I was an ER doctor for three more years after that, but I did have four children in four years.

 

So I decided, let me see, when I was pregnant with my fourth child and my oldest was three. So I had four babies in four years and two months. I got Botox for the first time. What actually happened is I had gone on a medical mission to Guatemala and I felt like I was older than all the women that were there, because it was a bunch of plastic surgeons and their wives, right, and the nurses. They were all getting Botox. I was like, “My nose should get a little Botox.”

 

So, I got a little Botox, and then three months later, I’d got a little more Botox, and I thought, “This is done. Why am I paying somebody else to do this? It can’t be rocket science if this person’s doing this. So let me go take a course.” I took a course, and I came back … My mother was an entrepreneur, and she actually went with me to the course … It was like a weekend course, and she was my model. I came back on the plane and I said, “I’m going to open a med spa.”

 

Four months pregnant with my fourth baby, working a couple different ER jobs and as a 1099 contractor for a very little pay, I found out I was paying my plumber more per hour than I was making. Austin is a very high demand city, it makes all the lists of all the cool places to live and so your salary goes down and down and down the more desirable location you live.

 

I’ve been here for seven years at the time. My mom sitting next to me who was, I love my mom but she’s a tough critic, she goes, “I think that’s a wonderful idea.” I thought, “So I got the blessing of mom.” I didn’t get it loaned from the bank of mom. That was a whole other story, but I thought, “Okay, this might not be so crazy.” Literally from May until September with no training, no business, nothing, I just threw it all together and opened the end of, I think my first patient was September 30th when I had a four week old baby at home and the other three.

 

So just decided I needed to change, and I wanted to do something where I had more control over the experience that my patients were having. I just wanted to have joy in medicine again. I think going to Guatemala, I mean, I cried when I was down there. Those people were so happy to just have people take care of them, and I felt like I was a doctor again. I felt like I was, I mean, altruistic, yes. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go there to feel good about myself. I went there to help other people, but I had been just so bitter. I felt like I was sinking and to burnout and the whole moral abuse.

 

I thought, “I got to do something else.” I’d always been a little bit interested in aesthetics. I had melanoma 19 years ago, but again I’d never gotten more than a facial. So I didn’t know anything about it and just thought, “Well, let me see if I can do this,” and started researching and just threw everything into it. I learned a lot along the way, and made a lot of mistakes for sure.

 

How was the first couple years? Now, just to get an idea, were you still working your ER shifts? Were you cutting back?

 

Yeah, so I had the luxury of the main ER gigs I was working, we’re at three standing ERs. They didn’t pay great, but you had some hours that you might not have any patients. What I did was I had one job where I worked six 24-hour shifts a month, and then I had another ER, freestanding ER where I did a bunch of 12s, like another six 12s a month. So I took advantage of the downtime. If I got up at 2:00 in the morning with a patient, and they were there for a couple hours, and I was just waiting on labs, I would watch a webinar on something I found. I would read something about a business plan.

 

I had a Sciton laser. I would go watch some educational video. So I still very much worked a full-time ER job, and then halftime at another ER job. I’d work a 24-hour shift, come home sleep for two hours and then go see patients in the med spa. I would usually be able to sleep at night a little bit. I just found all my free time that I was out of the house, and again, I had the luxury of having a husband who had an income, but I didn’t cutback at all. I actually worked more.

 

The loan that I got when I did my build out, I started in a one room, 10 by 12 hair salon rental, booth rental with one bed and I hired an aesthetician to answer the cellphone and do a few things. She could do treatments in Texas. If I had seen the patient, diagnosed the condition, prescribed the treatment and given her the settings, she could administer a photofacial. I did not allow her to do more than that. She did microneedling and photofacials, but she didn’t do fillers or Botox, or anything that I wasn’t comfortable with.

 

She basically could do that on the days that I was in the ER. Then on the days that I had “off,” I would go in there by appointment only and take care of my hormone patient, do Botox and fillers. I started building my brand and building my clientele, because I was an ER doctor. It’s not like I was in gynecologist, I could just put a sign up that said, “No offering hormones,” or I was an internist that could put a sign up that said, “We now do Botox.”

 

I had to build it from nothing. I guaranteed my loan when I moved about nine months later or seven months later, we moved into a 2,000 square-foot space. My loan was actually not an SBA, small business administration loan. It was actually through private bank, Frost Bank. It was a conventional loan that we actually just secured against our income. It was a better rate, there was less paperwork, but I made Frost Bank a promise that I would continue to work in the ER until I could float my business, and that if at anytime I got behind, I had the availability, I could go to remote Texas and make three times as much, and go do a weekend somewhere.

 

I never had to do that thankfully, and then I gradually just started cutting back my shifts to where about a year ago, so about three and a half years into it, sorry about two, little over two years into it, not quite two years in the full space, I quit the ER completely. Because it got the point to where working those 24-hour shifts, I think I did a Sunday night, I would do a 24-hour shift because my med spa was closed on Monday. I opened Tuesday through Saturday.

 

It got to where working in the ER was actually taking away from my non-patient care time to be able to do things like have this podcast and develop my business, and grow my business, and travel to lectures and things. I was able to start paying myself and cutback my ER job.

 

Just so I understand, how long have you had your practice now? How long has it been?

 

Yeah, so my first patient was September 30th of 2016. So about a little under four years. Three and a half years with a dot almost.

 

Wow, that’s great and you’re able to leave after two years. From what I understand you just said you’re a 1099 so it was easy for you to just continue the shifts or did you have [crosstalk 00:10:38].

 

Yeah. I was 1099, I had one job. The full-time job I just left completely, again, they got bought by some company. They started asking me to do some unethical shady crap about billing and over billing, and they’re actually out of business now. I quit that job, and then I just started cutting back a little bit. Then finally, I just told them, I left on very good terms. I left the door wide open. I’m still board certified. I’m still credentialed that place I was.

 

It was a locally owned business, Austin Emergency Room or Austin Emergency Center. I’m friends with the owner as a business person, and he understands. He’s like, “I own a business too. You got to do what’s right for you.” I just said, “I don’t have enough availability right now, and I just started cutting back.” They said, “Well, if you ever want more shifts or you want to pick anything up, just let us know.”

 

So there’s a lot of doctors who are interested in aesthetics. They may take a weekend course, they may decide to do it on their own, but let’s be honest, a lot of them failed to do it or don’t perceive. Where do you think you succeeded while others didn’t?

 

I had a couple things. One is I realized that you can’t learn this stuff in a weekend. If you want to be a bad injector, you go to a weekend course. If you want to be good at this, you have to really, really invest a lot of time. You got to put the work in. I think a lot of people fail, because they think especially with aesthetics, or even just entrepreneurship in general, they think it’s mailbox money that it’s get rich quick money, and it’s the opposite.

 

I worked a hundred hours for two years. I worked more than I worked in residency. I slept five hours a night. At every minute I had I was doing something. I spent couple hundred thousand dollars over the first two years training, going to workshops. Any opportunity that I had, I would go learn something. I had a laser early on, which I think helped me. It was definitely, now there was a bigger payment, but I learned very quickly about cost of goods and overhead, and what things really you’re able to make money on and what pays your rent.

 

So I had a Sciton laser, which I don’t get paid by Sciton yet although I might become a luminary for them. They’re a great company, but they’re in Silicon Valley, and they’re still a family-owned company. They specifically were very supportive. They have this thing called, what do they call it? “Success Builder.” Basically, when you purchase a laser platform with them, which I liked it because it was one that you could build upon instead of having to have this machine that does this, and this machine that does this.

 

It was like this one thing and you can just add hand pieces to it, and it still only takes up one amount of space in your room. They gave me a lot of training with that. They sent me to a consultant in Kansas City. He was brilliant. He is not a physician, and he’s just a brilliant salesman. He was a laser salesman and businessman. He said, “This is what I did.” I reached out to an ER doctor friend who owns a place in Olympia, Washington. She told me she bought a laser early, or she didn’t, that was a mistake that she made. She bought a laser sooner. She opened in a one room hair salon.

 

I just picked her brain, and then I think I just listened to the people that were doing it, and were doing it well. The biggest mistake I made early on, a couple of them is one I worried about my competition too much. I spent too much time obsessing about, “Oh my God, there’s another place opening and they’re charging less and blah, blah, blah.” I wasted energy and time that I could’ve been bettering myself worrying about them.

 

The other thing is I didn’t get books truly set-up correctly from the get go. I didn’t have a bookkeeper. I didn’t have a CPA that was local to help me figure out cashflow statements, and really get QuickBooks set-up. So even three and a half years later, we’re still digging ourselves out of a bit of a bookkeeping mess just having to make everything look right, because the books have to carry over year to year.

 

My taxes are paid and all that, that we need to have a better management of inventory. We had a lot of spoilage for example like we over-ordered. I let the reps talk me into, “Spend this much money and your cost of this will only be this.” “Oh, that sounds like a great deal.” I’m a sucker for it at the grocery store, “Buy this, get this free.” I’d overbought and I wasn’t able to use for example things with expiration fillers and it expired, and they wouldn’t replace them.

 

So I overbought, because I listened to the reps. Big mistake. It’s still cheaper to have pay a little bit more per thing and have your profit be a little bit less than it is to have thousands and tens of thousands of dollars go to waste, which happened.

 

So yeah, a couple of points there that you illuminated. One was you followed people who already were successful. You followed with the salesman, and you had people in place, and you didn’t listen to what your competitors are saying. It also seemed that your pricing is you didn’t … A lot of problems wise that you got that they’d start to panic and then they just want to be role model, they want to be the low cost leader, and what’s the lowest price that we can get? It sounds like you stuck to your guns there.

 

I did. When we moved, I had my price and we do a big annual event and that’s my big sale. We do a little special here and there, but I did when we moved into the new place, which was end of May, I had maybe 200, 300 clients on an email list. So I had some business coming in. I had a little bit of walk-in traffic, but all of a sudden I went from having me and one aesthetician at $18 an hour laser tech to having, I had to have a front desk now because I had a desk and to have somebody answer the phone and my aesthetician.

 

I went to having CoolSculpting. I bought CoolSculpt inside for the tech for that, and I ended up really staff heavy. The summer is the worst time for aesthetics, because people go on vacations. We tell people, “You can’t do laser treatments if you’re going to be out in the sun.” I did panic a little bit when we first moved, and I did Groupon for Botox. I did it for about a week and decided it was the worst thing ever. I got in a big fight with them. They didn’t want to let me cancel it.

 

I sold maybe 40 in a week, and half the people were the people that were already my clients who were just looking for a deal. I think we took our Botox from $10 a unit, it’s now 12 by the way. I think we took it from 10 to eight, and then Groupon takes half. If you really do the math, you pay more than eight per unit if you include overhead, and loss, and the syringes and having to retreat people who don’t get results. That’s the other thing, I always guaranteed my work.

 

I always said, “If you’re not happy, I’ll make it right.” That was some really good advice that I got, especially in the last year and a half when I met Dr. [Reynolds 00:18:10] is he said, “You can’t ethically charge somebody cash for something and then keep their money if they’re not happy.” People know that, because they’re taking much less of a risk. If you’re going to go buy a watch at Walmart and it breaks, and Walmart can take back a $20 watch, then you need to be able to have somebody spend $600 on Botox and have them love what you do.

 

I learned how to get rid of the people that didn’t appreciate and value me. I had to do that a few times and that was a really, really hard lesson, keep people that just they’re trouble, and you keep them too long and you start, “Oh, what can I do to make it right?” You’re constantly catering to them and you’re realizing like they don’t trust you and they do this everywhere. You start following a couple people and they go up and they’d write negative reviews all over town.

 

I did that once. I didn’t cut her off. When I finally did cut her off, she wrote a horrible review. So it’s like, [crosstalk 00:19:08].

 

Yeah, and that’s something that I’ve taken too is 95% of your clientele will love you, it’s always that 5%. If those 5% get to be a drain, you need to be able to say, “Hey you know what? We’re not a good fit,” and let them go and say, “Bye-bye.” It’s always going to be that no matter what you do.

 

Yeah, the one I did was about a year ago, the last one I did. It was so liberating when I did it. I won’t get into circumstances, but she didn’t trust me. She wasn’t happy, she didn’t trust me, and I felt that. Again, in my gut the first thing I said was, “Oh, let me just give you this for free. Let me do this for you for free to keep you.” I took one for the team and I said, “I am so sorry that I let you down. I feel so bad that you had to drive 30 minutes to get here two times, and I’m so sorry. Let me go ahead and just refund your money and take care of it. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

 

The implication was, “Don’t come back.” When I do a refund for somebody, I make them sign a disclosure. I had her sign something that said, it’s nothing scholarly, but it basically says, “This date, I got this procedure, I was refunded this amount, and by accepting this refund, I agree that I won’t disparage Dr. Porter, my staff, either verbally or on social media, or in reviews or whatever.” They signed in. Again, I don’t know if it’ll hold up in court, but I think it scares people enough to realize like, “Okay, I’m just going to walk away.”

 

Yeah, we have something very similar. So far, it’s worked. We really do that, but when it does, they tend to be the same people who do it again and again and again. Then they’re like, “Well no, I want you to come.”

 

Yeah, and the punishment is that if you refund them is they lose you. They have to go find somebody else.

 

Right. So hopefully they’ll find happiness somewhere else.

 

Right.

 

Your different procedures that you started when you said you started it, but laser, you did some aesthetics I guess at the beginning.

 

Yeah, I mostly so the first thing I did was I learned the PRP, because I thought that was really new and trending, and I thought it was really cool stuff. I was comfortable doing pelvic exams for O-Shot, I was comfortable doing examining men. I did BioTE hormones. I would never have thought that. I thought, “Oh God, everyone gets old, but brainwash about hormones.” That’s beyond the scope of this call for sure. One of my mentors said it’s steady, they come in every three to four months, and like Botox.

 

You don’t make a million dollars on one hormone patient, but they come, they’re reliable. They want to keep coming. So I did that, and then I did, we bought a SkinPen. I did a little bit of just Botox and dermal filler. We had sunscreen, ultra sunscreen and like one retail product, one retail brand, just a few things. I had my Sciton and I did Halo, which is like an ablative laser and then the photofacials.

 

When did you end up in deciding to call yourself the Austin Love Doctor?

 

Yeah, so what I found is over the course of a couple years, and so my business started out as WrinkleFree MD. I came up with the name that was cute, people remember it, and I’ve actually had people like, “I sat next to somebody on the plane and they told me that they come to you and I live an hour away, but their skin looks so great.” It’s cool to have a memorable name that people can remember. I started doing all these stuff, and I had patients that were … I felt like I was changing a lot of lives, and I really, really found the joy in my practice again.

 

The biggest joy that I found was treating men and women whose marriages and personal lives were suffering because of bedroom issues. So erectile dysfunction, or painful, genital condition, lichen sclerosus, or bleeding when they had intercourse. My record in my clinic is 18 years of a married couple that wasn’t able to have sex that was able to have sex again after seeing me.

 

That doesn’t make you just want to cry, right? Happily married people, and it’s very common. They don’t want to talk about it. I was just an open ear, I was very ready to talk about it. I just felt like I really helped patients a lot. So I decided that I wanted to begin with my time transitioning into specializing in that. It’s a niche market. I have so much passion for it. There is a need, it’s just people don’t talk about it. It distinguishes me from other people in town, because med spas does in the laws in Texas are fairly lax, but there’s gynecologists, and urologists, sure, but they’re not doing what I’m doing.

 

Nobody is treating men and women comprehensively. Yeah, there’s sex therapists, but they’re not able to do the medical treatments. My thought was to really get the word out locally, and then hopefully nationally that we can do things to make people men and women have sex again, and have sex that they enjoy, and bring passion back into their marriages. I came up with the name, I thought it was Austin’s funky, it’s fun, it’s memorable, the Love Doctor, because it’s not just about sex, it’s about bringing people closer together.

 

I actually trademarked that. So I own a federal trademark for that name, and started a podcast to get the word out. Then just have slowly been building that brand. We’re working on our social media. It’s hard to advertise, because Facebook, Instagram, and a lot of Google AdWords, they shut it down because some of it involves platelet rich plasma, which is not, they’re classifying it as we’re just putting some bands on things right now unnecessarily.

 

It’s definitely a word of mouth thing. There’s a lifestyle community, which is what Swinger, the old term “Swingers,” there’s a big lifestyle community in Austin. So they are people that value sex and talk about it. I’ve gotten a lot of just client referrals that way, treat one and then they tell other people. Just slowly building the brand, and I’ve been very, very careful to not overextend myself, and learn my lesson. Don’t keep buying equipment. Don’t buy every machine. Slowly stick to what you’ve got and make the most of the equipment that you have, and then buy something new when you’re getting, there’s enough to man for it.

 

I had this thing called, “The Zimmer ZWave” and it puts out pulse waves. We were using it for CoolSculpting. What it does is it sends out these, it’s low intensity shockwave therapy, high intensity shockwave therapy is what they used to break our kidney stones. A patient came in who didn’t want to get a needle in his penis, which is this other procedure that I do for erectile dysfunction. He didn’t want to be able to use the pump. It’s called, “the Priapus Shot.”

 

He was afraid, because he didn’t want his wife to know. So he asked me if I could do this sound wave procedure on him, and I wasn’t trained on it yet, and he had seen on my website that, “Hey, you’ve got the machine. You should be able to do it.” I went and learned how to do that. I do GAINSWave. It’s a brand of that, basically a treatment protocol. I started doing that.

 

What I slowly found is that I had way more demand for that than I had for CoolSculpting, because CoolSculpting, the market is saturated and there was a lot more revenue in GAINSWave than there was in CoolSculpting, because the machine was already paid for and basically they were just paying for my time. There was no consumable. There was no card that needed to get put in the machine. Man were those guys happy. They’re so happy. They love that treatment. I love the treatment, because I love to help people.

 

The energy fed off of itself. I really enjoyed doing that. I love to treat couples, and so I started treating these men, and the men then would have their wife come in, because the wife needed hormones. Then the wife would come in and get Botox, and then she’d find out that I did testosterone while her husband’s on testosterone shots. Well maybe I’ll give him a BioTE and then he’ll come and get pellets with me.

 

So really what I learned is that spending money on ads, which was a huge, huge waste of money. I think my first year I spent $60,000 on advertising for CoolSculpting, just for CoolSculpting. Huge waste of money. We got one person that specifically said they saw our CoolSculpting and bought CoolSculpting. It took a while to build up my practice and build up my clientele to where I could take advantage of what they call, “Internal marketing” where you market to your own people and the friends that they know rather than putting it out to the public.

 

When I realized that you could put an ad in the paper for $25 off a haircut, right? Well, if a woman is going to move to a new town and she wants to get her hair done, most women are not going to just go because they saw an ad for $25 off a haircut. They’re going to find somebody whose hair they like and ask them, “Who cuts your hair? Who does your hair?” The woman’s going to say, “It’s Tina at Breeze.” They’re going to say, “Okay,” and they’re going to call Breeze and ask for Tina. If she’s not available for a month and they say, “What about Sarah?” “Nope, I want Tina.”

 

If people at the clientele that I want or not are going to be that choosy about who cuts their hair, which will grow back, that’s the clientele that I want to pick me, and they’re not going to pick me from an ad. By enlarge, most of my business is still word of mouth and internal marketing to my own existing clients.

 

I love it. I think that’s where a lot of med spa owner, turning new med spa owners has failed to it [inaudible 00:29:18]. While I heard it, just put my money into marketing and then they will come, or we’ll get a laser and anything on your shelf, it doesn’t work that way.

 

Nobody shows that because you buy something. You do have to have a good website. You have to have a website that has SEO optimization and you have to have a website that looks like a place people want to go. You don’t have to have the fanciest place. I didn’t spend a million dollars on my build out. I didn’t put a hundred thousand dollar fish tank in the middle of it, or get chandeliers, or anything like that that are crazy expensive, but it’s clean, it’s nice, it’s modern. It’s really that it’s clean, and it’s gender ambiguous.

 

The colors I chose are teal and gray, and orange and yellow. So it’s warm, and it’s retro modern, but it’s not like it’s a place where it’s all pink fluffy couches and it squirts lavender out of the vents, because guys wouldn’t want to come there. There’s one day Mike that I had a female patient walk in, and she looks, and I’ve got, we were running a little bit … I had five guys sitting in my waiting room. She goes, “You treat them in here?” I thought, “I have arrived. I’ve got a med spa full of men. I’m doing the right thing.”

 

I’d like to grow Austin Love Doctor. My goal is to have it be it separate entity, have it be its own location about maybe 20 minutes away from where I am, but all in good time, it needs to be able to support itself on its own. As my time gets to become 75% of my clinic hours are doing the sexual wellness, then I will transition more to that, and I will hire somebody to come help me with my med spa and then I’ll add some things like probably a sex therapist and some educational workshops.

 

We’re already working on online retailing of toys and things like that. I’m trying to get a little bit of mailbox money as well, and have a little bit of online, but you can’t just dump everything into something and just cross your fingers, sit on your couch and hope that it’s going to work.

 

I love it that you have when you’re looking at your different procedures and your different treatments is, and we saw that in our clinic, it all relates to one another. For example, we started off with weight loss, and then really weight loss isn’t a big moneymaker, but it brought in our hormone patients. Then from the hormone patients, they brought in their husbands so then we’re looking at different things, intimacy, then they’re coming in for … My weight loss patients when they were losing weight, they said, “We want to look better.” So do you need Botox?

 

If they were going to the place across town, we can bring that in. So everything, they’re just related and the more … It sounds like all the service you’re doing, you’re not just going out there and saying, “Hey, I’m just gonna get a CoolSculpting.” You’re going out there and saying, “What else can I be doing to bring them in and spend money with me instead of going out to a competitor or someone else.” Is that [crosstalk 00:32:20]?

 

Yeah, I’m taking the device and maximizing it. So that [crosstalk 00:32:23] for example, we’d use it after CoolSculpting. We can use it on plantar fasciitis to loosen up the feet. That’s $150 for 15 minutes of somebody’s time just to … It feels great, but you need it for cellulite. I don’t like devices that are a one trick pony number one. The other thing is I don’t like devices that have a consumable that every time you turn it on, you owe some company a hundred bucks or 200 bucks. That’s really, really hard.

 

My laser is phenomenal and it’s the Bentley of lasers, but my warranty alone is expensive. My warranty alone is $24,000 a year. So it’s two grand a month. So there’s some overhead for sure. The other thing is like I said, I don’t sell anybody anything. I hate to be sold. As a woman, I don’t want to go buy a car and have some guy pressure me, and I’ve got to make a decision today. Everything we do is through education. I would say probably 80% of our people that come in for aesthetics have never done anything more than maybe like a facial. They were a BB cream, and they wash their face if they’re lucky, but they’re all new to it.

 

I don’t want to sell somebody a $5,000 package, have them blow their entire year’s savings and come in onetime, and then regret it, and then never come back. I say, “Look, pick the one, this is the thing that most bogs you? Start here. Let’s start with a little Botox. Get you HydraFacial. Try a couple photofacials and see how that goes.” Then you develop a relationship with them, and you develop a trust with them. Then you want that person that’s going to come in every one to three months and get something done, buy a product, and come in and get a procedure.

 

That lasting business is much, much, much more successful than having somebody come and get a bunch of stuff once. Part of that is just building relationships with people. I can’t say that everybody would be successful at that, because they might not. I know my client’s grandchildren’s names. I know when their anniversary is. We send them a handwritten thank you card. I write birthday cards to everybody. My first year, my top 10% last year get Christmas gifts that I hand-deliver.

 

I work at it. It’s Nordstrom. Those people, they’re not going anywhere. They refer all their friends, because you never know who that one client is going to be, who maybe they only spend a thousand dollars with you, which is still a lot of money, but their best friend spends 10 and that’s totally happened. Especially with the men, you never know. Some guy coming in, so you find out he comes and asks you about a priapus shot and he’s all dirty, and you find out he owns this 600-acre ranch, and he’s a millionaire. He’s got more money than what you’re ever going to know.

 

So just throw it all out there. Let people make their choices. Be there to answer questions, but never pressure anybody. It just doesn’t work for us.

 

I love it. I know you’ve got to go soon, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention. You said all the grandkids’ names and your family’s name, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention your sister, Katie Porter who here in California and really all through the country now is a superstar in the political realm. What does she taught you or what have you learned from your sister that you’re using in your own business?

 

I think probably we learn most from our mom. My mom owned a quilting business. She taught for a little bit, hated that, and then edited books for a while and then started a quilting business. Really, just the way we were raised, my dad was a farmer, he was an entrepreneur, but we were always told that my parents, by my parents that they would be disappointed if we didn’t try our hardest. My sister won an election that everyone told her couldn’t be done. She did it with grassroots, money, no pack money in a district in Southern California that had been republican since the 60s when it was built. So it was 60 years, almost 60 years later-

 

It’s pretty bad.

 

Totally. She won as a democrat without taking corporate money. She just put the work in. She says, “You know what? We just went out there, and we got people to vote, and we got people excited.” Once you have the opportunity, you have to make mom and dad proud. She doesn’t take her job lightly. She does everything she can for people, and she bust her ass. I think a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of people just didn’t life don’t do well because you’re just lazy.

 

They don’t listen to other people. I could’ve said, “Look, you don’t know anything about business. I’ve got way more education than you do. I know what I’m doing and just done it.” Instead I said, “Oh, I’ve never done this before. What can you teach me?” I’m always learning. She’s always learning from her constituents like, “I’m here to serve you. What can I do?” I’m going to service job too like, “What can I do to make your experience better? What could we have done? What would you like to see here?”

 

Just really taking feedback, hearing people out, and just never stopping. Don’t ever give up.

 

Thank you for sharing it. Although I did want a video from you, and I did see you pull out a whiteboard or some type, but I don’t know if you do that for your own patients, but hey if it works to the family, great.

 

Yeah. We’ve got chalkboards and whiteboards, and I teach other physicians classes. I’ve got a whole webinar on how to help physicians escape the emergency room that I created that’s a four-part webinar. That’s escapetheer.com. It’s not specifically for emergency physicians. It’s just using me as an example and aesthetics as an example for people to figure out the mistakes I made and how to read the business plan and do things.

 

Whiteboards and people learn through education. Don’t ever quit learning. I appreciate that I’m learning from you because I’m following you, and I’m in awe of the things you’re doing and I’m like, “Oh man,” but not in a jealous way, right? It’s community over competition. It’s saying, “Okay well, this isn’t working. Don’t keep cranking the same crank if it’s not working. Find a new crank, and listen to people who’ve paved the way in the trail ahead of you.” Take the things that they say with, to a certain degree, with a grain of salt. There’s a couple things that people have advised me that I said, “I don’t think that’s at the goal. I don’t think that’s legal or whatever.”

 

Check definitely dot your I’s and cross your T’s but why would you throw away good advice and free advice?

 

Right. We all know the adage about opinions, right?

 

Don’t let pride get in your way. If you have knowledge to share with other people, share it. [crosstalk 00:39:35]

 

Oh yeah, that’s been my mantra. So again, the website is escapetheer.com.

 

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Is that where they can go to if they wanted to contact you or reach out to you [crosstalk 00:39:45]?

 

They can reach out through there. They can also reach me at austinlovedoctor.com. There’s a way to contact us there. I teach physicians. I do dermal filler and Botox courses. I do platelet rich plasma courses. I teach sexual wellness courses. I can do marketing. I love to help. I enjoy teaching and my sister with her whiteboard and congress, but somebody taught me, right? So I’m always learning and I feel like I need to give that back. I’m willing to help anybody in any way that they can. It breaks up your day. It gives you something else to do and something to look forward to.

 

I love it. This has been amazing. I could talk to you for hours, but I know you got to go. What’s some last minute advice you want to give to the doctors out there? Maybe someone who wants to start up an aesthetics practice or maybe someone who’s been doing it for about a year or two, and they’re just not sure whether or not to continue. What advice would you give to them?

 

You cannot be afraid to pull the trigger. You might fail, it’s possible. It happens. If you don’t invest the time more than the money, but the time and get good advice, because there’s a lot of consultant companies out there that charge people a lot of money and it’s all BS. At some point, you have to get your butt off the couch and take the leap. Because if you don’t, you’ll never do it, and then you’ll spend all this time complaining and saying, “How come I got stuck in the ER, or I’m in the clinic, or my life is miserable or what I’m going to do.” You have to make the change.

 

I was fortunate that I was in my 30s and I thought, “Well, crap, this is really scary. I’m going to dump my savings into this and I could lose everything,” but also at 30 something, I have another hopefully 20 or 30 years to work. I could make it back, but if I just sat around and just, “I don’t know. I’m scared,” it’ll never happen for you. I learned that from my mom, because my mom when she was had her quilting business and she lectured, so she was a teacher I guess, she lectured about how to do quilt. She wrote books. She had a television show and a magazine, and her television show was on public television. Have you ever seen that skit on SNL about Schweddy Balls?

 

Yes, I have.

 

That is based off of my mom’s quilt show. It’s like two woman wearing vest and they interrupt each other.

 

Oh yeah, Alec Baldwin. Oh yeah. I watched it like a few months ago.

 

Yeah. When they do that, that’s based off of my mom’s public television quilt show. At least we never got true to them, it totally [inaudible 00:42:26]. So she had where her magazine publisher drop their magazine. The magazine was what drove their business and fed their business, because they had circulation, people saw the magazine and they bought these kits and then the TV show. It was the bottom of the pyramid. It was the thing that held everything together.

 

She was about to lose everything, and she took a leap and took a partner, and she bought her magazine, got a publishing company and they started self-publishing the magazine. She sold her company for tens of millions of dollars. It could’ve been zero, and it was in the middle of a divorce, and it could easily been zero. She said, “I have no choice. I has to do it.” You have to sometimes just be a little bit afraid and just do it. Pressure or just take the leap.

 

Take the leap. I think the scariest thing is when I talked with doctors who I mentored or reached out to me and they’re in the same position that they were a year ago, five years ago, they’re still afraid and not willing to do it. Creating a website is going to be some crazy thing that they’ve ever done before. I think the crazy thing is being in the same place, being in the same place that you were [crosstalk 00:43:47].

 

You’re still afraid. You’re still afraid sometimes, right Mike?

 

Oh yeah, all the time.

 

I think owning a business there’s always some uncertainty. I think even my husband, he doesn’t quite get it because he’s still in the ER and he is like, “Why can’t you just fire the person? Why can’t you just like … ?” It’s not that easy dude. Get a new laser tech. There’s always some uncertainty, specifically if we want to … There’s always a chance that something’s going to blow up, or that there’s going to be a worldwide pandemic of some virus. Every day is a new challenge, and there’s always challenges with employees.

 

I think that was another hard thing is that if you’re a hard worker, 99.9% of people in the world are not, which is why you own the business and they don’t own the business. Maybe they never put the work in, but there’s always something. It’s scary. Man, you could be going along just great and then all of a sudden something happens. So there’s always going to be a little bit of fear, but it’s manageable, but you have to just plunge in or it’ll never happen for you.

 

I love it. I think physicians are in a unique position, because let’s face it, we generally will have something to fall back on. If we’ve had to put a pause on things, we always can get back to the ER. We can always go back to the [primary key 00:45:12]. It may not be about what we want, but unlike some others, we do have an advantage of some others. What we need right now is more leaders, leaders like yourself, leaders like your sister, people who are out there paving the way and that’s really what it’s all about and seeing what you guys are doing.

 

Yeah, and to add on that, I would say you always need to be ethical.

 

Of course, yeah.

 

I don’t do anything that I’m not trained to do. I stay in my lane. So I don’t do surgery. I don’t feel that even if I did a weekend course, or a one week course that I really would be good enough to do surgery and things like that. So I keep everything non-surgical, because I still need to have my medical license to fall back on if there is some major issue where I have to close my business or temporarily or long-term, or my husband lost his job, or got sick and we lost insurance and I had to go back to work.

 

So I make sure that I always protect my medical license at all costs. I don’t do things that are unethical. I don’t lie. I keep up with my paperwork. I’m compliant with medical board, and I make my staff be the same. When I hire people, that is one of the things that I tell them. I’d tell them, “There’s three things that you have to do at this job. The first thing is you protect my medical license at all cost, which means if I ever find out that you do anything unethical, that you see or treat a patient without me having seen and evaluated them, et cetera, you’ll be terminated immediately with no pay.”

 

The second thing is, “You need to market my business and love it enough that you talk about it when somebody asks you when you’re out at a party and somebody goes, “Hey, tell me about CoolSculpting or hey tell me about those vibrators you sell or whatever.” You have to be passionate about it, because if you’re not passionate about it and advertising, and just overcome with what you love, that it’s going to come off to clients and that grassroots marketing is huge.”

 

The third thing is, “You actually have to do your job and do it well.” I tell everybody those, they have to do those three things. At the end of the day, like you said, I’ve got my medical license to fall back on, but when you start doing shady crap for to make a buck, nope.

 

You’ve got so much good stuff. Just to add onto that, I actually have a relationship with the medical board. I’ve been a monitor, and I have a quote for it, “I’m in the Medical Board of California,” where if I think that things are going … I’m asking them, “What’s going on? What are they looking for next?” Also, you can even take that a step further at being proactive, so you’re not as always fearful. I know you got to go. This has been amazing.

 

The website again is escapetheer.com. You can also find her at austinlovedoctor.com. Dr. Emily Porter, it has been a pleasure. I know a lot of people get a lot out of this episode. Thank you so much.

 

Thanks so much for having me, and I hope we can do it again sometime.

 

We’d love to have you again. Thanks everybody. Follow her advice. Now is not the time to be complacent. Now is not the time to be scared. As always guys, as I say every day, keep moving forward.

 

Filed Under: Articles, Entrepreneurship, Interviews

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The Truth About Non-Clinical Jobs with Michelle Mudge-Riley

Increasing job dissatisfaction is leading to an influx of physicians looking to go non-clinical, resulting in these type of jobs getting harder and harder to come by. Competition is getting fierce leading to dwindling wages. More sham telemedicine companies are popping up taking advantage of desperate doctors. So what’s a doctor to do? We talk job hunting strategies with renowned non-clinical coach and mentor Michelle Mudge-Riley on what you need to do now to avoid the pitfalls, and stay ahead of the competition.

Michelle will be hosting a conference in April 2019 for physicians interested in non-clinical careers and side gigs. PHP Conference Details

(Start Transcript)

Too much competition for dwindling nonclinical jobs? Sham telemedicine companies taking advantage of desperate doctors? We’re going to talk about the pitfalls to choosing a nonclinical career as well as possible solutions on this episode of BootstrapMD.

Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming with BootstrapMD, really excited today. We’re going to be talking with one of the veterans in the industry. I’ve known her. We’ve been in different circles, but we didn’t actually get to connect until recently. We’ve both been involved in physician education in terms of helping doctors with nonclinical careers in entrepreneurship. What I want you guys to get out of this is really to understand that there are so many ways that you can become successful, but the best way I believe is to have a coach or have a mentor, someone who’s actually been there and done that.

Michelle has certainly done this. Really quick bio about Michelle Mudge-Riley: She’s a physician and peer mentor coach. She spent the past 13 years assisting physician to medical students with career strategy through the company she founded in 2008 called Physicians Helping Physicians. The doctors she works with are interested in using degrees in a nontraditional way as I mentioned through non-clinic careers, optimizing their skills and passions within their career and rediscovering meaning and purpose in their work. She’s been called the doctor’s doctor in the 2010 book she co-authored because of her success in working with other doctors.

The book is called Physicians in Transition. I love things that rhyme. Dr. Mudge-Riley received her medical degree from Des Moines University, Osteopathic Medical School, and her master’s degree in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. Michelle, thank you for being on the podcast today.

Hi, Mike! I’m so happy to be here!

Like I said, we’ve known about each other, or I’ve at least known about you for the last decade because when we were helping physicians, there were very few other mentors in this space. I’m really glad that we’re finally connecting. One of the reasons we’re connecting is I was honored to be able to present at her conference that is coming up, the celebration network meeting coming up in Austin in April, which we’ll be talking about throughout the call here today. Thanks again for coming on the call. I know you’re really busy. You got a lot of things going on, especially with this conference. I just wanna know how did you first get started, because last time I checked, there wasn’t a residency for nonclinical careers mentor coaching.

I know. Well, I started very accidentally. I planned to be a doctor and live happily ever after. That was the plan, which probably is most of our plan. It’s most physician’s plan when they go to medical school. As happens to now a lot of us, it wasn’t the plan, so I ended up getting into somewhat of a malignant residency. While I loved med school, when I started meeting the residents and the attendants and the other physicians who were practicing, I saw how unhappy they were and I was pretty unhappy myself and I thought, “Wow, all this so the next 40 years I can be a miserable, angry person who hates what they do?”

I thought, “There’s no way I’m doing this.” I was young, and I decided to take a year off and see what else was out there, explore industry. I got a job at a medical device company, and fully intended on going back. It’s been almost 20 years and I haven’t gone back. What ended up happening was I went back to school for a business degree, a masters in health administration just to fill some of those gaps because we don’t learn business at all in med school as we all know. During the time of my transition from that, from the device company, then to a brokerage firm working in corporate wellness, I was their director of medical management.

I worked with small and medium sized companies helping them design, implement, and evaluate their wellness programs. I started talking about my story and writing about it. I actually cold called some editors, and they said, “Sure. Write us a piece and we’ll publish it.” This was back in the early 2000’s. Physician burnout was just starting to be talked about. People wanted to hear a little more. I was somewhat of a novelty. I was authentic and just spoke about my trials and tribulations if you will, and people liked it.

I always put my email address at the end, and I would get contacted by other physicians and then people who were doing conferences asking me to speak to tell my story. It was all quite accidental. I just basically told the truth and talked about what had helped me, how I did a resume, how I went to Barnes and Noble and sold a hundred resume books, and didn’t have a clue on how to even start to put together a resume, but I figured it out. These triple boarded surgeons were calling me and saying, “Hey, can you help me write a resume?” I was like, “Well, sure. All right.”

For a while, I just helped people and then I realized, “You know what, this is taking up a lot of my time” so at one point I just said, “You know, I charge for this,” and the physician was like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, “Okay,” and my business was born. Over the years, I’ve had multiple different cost structures for coaching and help with resumes and elevator pitch, and LinkedIn comes along and all these different things, but for some reason, it’s always worked. I have helped a lot of physicians, and that has been so gratifying and through the process healed myself as well, because I felt like a huge failure and like, “Why don’t I want to do this?”

Because there weren’t a lot of us out there, I didn’t really know who to talk to, and there weren’t a lot of groups like there are now. I very much felt alone at that time probably like you did, right?

Pretty much. One of the things that was interesting is I actually didn’t find a lot of conferences where you could actually talk about some of these things. Some of the medical conferences that I was attending, I actually have one where they asked me to speak, but then when I was going to talk about entrepreneurship or doing something else, one of the people who led the conference says, and they were in the pharmaceutical industry, basically said that, “Yeah, that’s kind of not what we want to talk about, because we want the doctors to write more prescriptions. They cannot do what they want. They cannot not to in certain terms.”

It’s good that you were able to find an avenue for your message that you’re able to get across.

I really think it was all just timing and a lot of luck. Again, I didn’t plan it that way. It just kind of happened. As you know, then the tide continued with things getting even worse, which is really unfortunate, so back even in the early 2000’s when things weren’t great, now they’re much worse for doctors. There are a lot of us that are saying, “No, this is enough. We’re going to diversify what we’re doing or we have other interests,” and so doing a lot of things in addition to clinical work.

That’s interesting you say that it’s getting worse because I can agree with that, but I can also disagree with that. Let me know your thoughts on it. I think one is we’re talking about it more so maybe it’s been more prevalent, and burnout and then more and more people feel like, “Hey, yeah, I’m experiencing that.” I did that initially in my career. I definitely had burnout, but I think in the other way look red, there was definitely more opportunities for physicians, especially the nonclinical route in terms of things like telemedicine, pharmaceutical industry, expert witnessing and actually now about starting your own career through an online business or through consulting is which we did around but we didn’t call it back then, but all these different conferences about getting your message out into the world.

I’m just curious about your thoughts on where you’re seeing medicine as it pertains to nonclinical careers.

I definitely agree that things are better in terms of more opportunities and more people talking about this. It’s not the pink elephant in the room anymore, and no one feels like something’s really wrong with them, at least maybe at first, but not after they start exploring it. They start to recognize that there are lots of doctors who have done something different, some who have gone totally nonclinical and never looked back and some who diversify with some clinical, some side gigs, some part-time work, a variety of stuff, a grab bag of stuff.

The reason I feel like it’s worse for physicians now practicing is because the reimbursement continues to go down. Not only that, but the environment for physicians is very malignant in a lot of places. It wasn’t that way. It was starting to be that way in the early 2000’s, maybe a few pockets of really bad places, but it has gone downhill. I continue to talk to physicians who practice, who tell me stories about how they’re vilified and how no matter what happens, it’s always the doctor’s fault.

That just makes me really sad because a lot of these doctors will start to have very low self-esteem, very low confidence in themselves because they blame themselves because they’re being blamed by the administration or the nurses. They’re even having some legal action taken against them in some cases, or they’re losing their licenses, or they’re losing their jobs. I mean, that used to be unheard of physicians being fired. I mean, that was part of the reason I wanted to go to medical school. I thought, “Gosh, this would be a great job. I’ll make a good amount of money, and I will always have a job.” Well, that’s no longer the case.

Anyway, the environment for the physician who wants to practice clinically or who is practicing clinically I feel like is much worse than it was even 10 years ago, but the environment for nonclinical careers or non-traditional careers is better. That’s been born from this bad clinical environment, so a lot of business people see an opportunity, which is good. Then there are a lot of us who have spoken up over the years and are saying, “We can help you, or look at this opportunity or that opportunity.” Then others take advantage of it, and the word spreads.

That is really interesting. Again, you’re more on the front lines than I am because you do coach these physicians who are into these malingering environments. I’d like to dig a little bit deeper into that. Are there certain environments that are worse than others? Is it more of a hospital environment? Is it affecting younger doctors who may not have as much experience or may not feel that they can go in and go against? Do you see it more in the corporate? Is there any kind of area or is that too hard to stereotype? I’m curious.

Well, it really doesn’t distinguish. I actually think the younger doctors are maybe the best off at this point, not in terms of residency because it’s just a vial time and place, and people are treated just abhorrently in residency in some places. You still see those stories. Now, there are blogs out there so you can read the stories. I just read one last week. I forget which one it was, but on some forum, someone posted something. There’s a ton of stuff out there, but for different physicians of different ages, different genders, even foreign grads versus medical grads or US medical grads, it can still be difficult for both.

I spoke with a foreign grad the other day who was telling me about the environment for him and some of his colleagues. They are having to put up with just it sounds like a little bit more than they should. I’m not 100% sure if it’s because they’re foreign medical grads or not, but he seems to think they are. You only really see one side in some of these conversations, and so I’m not sure, but I have heard that from others. That may be a piece of it as well. The older physicians are having somewhat of a hard time with the transition to the electronic medical record.

Some of them just flat out can’t do it or won’t do it, and some of them can and will, but the administration isn’t willing to give them a chance or they’re just piling so much work. It’s non-sustainable for almost anyone. It’s tough in a lot of different places. You find it in different pockets, from academic medical centers to private medical centers. It does not distinguish, unfortunately.

I wanna shift gears just a bit… I liked what you said about nontraditional careers as opposed to non-clinical careers because I consider telemedicine is a clinical, but it’s not traditional, but that’s kind of semantics. I was recently talking with a friend who’s not a doctor, and he was telling me he has a business where he markets to doctors. He says, “I can’t find doctors on social media.” I said, “That’s because they’re there, they just don’t let you know they’re there.”

I said, “Did you know one of the largest groups is a Facebook group dedicated to side gigs for physicians? Do you know, the last I checked, it’s 23,000?” Because of this influx, is it getting harder to find a “nonclinical” job just because there’s so much interest in it? I’ve talked to a few of my own clients and they think that once they quit, jobs will be plentiful for them. It seems like it’s getting more and more competitive for these types of jobs, or is there an influx of more opportunities that I’m just not aware of?

There are definitely more opportunities, which is good, but it’s getting more competitive because where it used to be a trickle of physicians applying for some of the more low hanging fruit, like the utilization review or the telemedicine jobs, now, it’s a faucet. There are just lots and lots of physicians applying, so they have made the requirements more stringent at times. Sometimes, those requirements don’t need to be so stringent, but because there are so many applicants, the companies feel like they can.

I definitely want to talk about more of the positive stuff, but I do have to mention another somewhat negative part about all of this is some of the salaries have actually gone down or the pay has gone down for some of those more low hanging fruit jobs because they can get it. There are so many physicians who want out and want more flexibility or want non-traditional work that they’re willing to take $75, $80 an hour.

Oh wow.

It’s ridiculous versus $110, $120, which is still pretty low, but I mean, there’s a pretty big difference there. Although we’ve come together as physicians to try to not stand for that and not accept that low pay, there’s talk but I think people are still accepting it because they’re just desperate and they want out. It’s better than working at Starbucks or something like that, and they don’t know what else to do. I mean, the other problem is it’s hard to find information on the different opportunities that are not the low-hanging fruit like the utilization review work or telemedicine work or expert witness work, which not everyone wants to do either, IME work, things like that.

One of the things I also noticed too just because there is people going in to try to give these nontraditional jobs, I think you have to do your due diligence. I’ve seen now where because there is so much opportunity and particularly in the telemedicine space, I’m noticing. I recently talked to a colleague and he was going to say, “Hey, I joined this telemedicine group, but they’re going to be prescribing medications online without a physical exam, or they’re going to be sending me crutches or braces, and they’re going to put it on Medicare.”

I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” As a physician, you definitely need to do your due diligence because there are these big cases now, and these telemedicine companies, not all, I’m not saying anything, but there was definitely people who are trying to use your license to make a buck. Whether or not it’s legal or not legal, you need to be very careful. I mean, have you come across any of these types of companies? I certainly have seen them, but I just want to know your thoughts. Have you worked with doctors who may have come across these kinds of things?

Absolutely. I have done a lot of due diligence to the point of calling the companies and pretending like I was going to be applying for the work just to get the information because I’m a lot more savvy only because I’ve been out there for longer. I’ve been doing this for longer, so I feel like with my clients, I can help them out by giving them not only a second opinion but also the experience that I’ve gotten over the years just in the business world and interacting with these companies and maybe pick up things that they may not.

The people I work with appreciate that, but what I found is avoid those companies. There is a lot of shady stuff that’s happening. There are a lot of loopholes that some smart people are trying to take advantage of, and when something happens, the ones who are going to take the fall are going to be the physicians and their license. Avoid those like the plague. The DME, the durable medical equipment, avoid that right now, any kind of prescribing, especially any kind of pain medication, pain creams, stuff like that.

Make sure if you’re looking at a telemedicine job that there’s some kind of electronic portal that there’s some option for a video conference. That’s not always the case. You don’t have to have a video conference. There just has to be that option. All the legal aspects are beyond the scope of this podcast, but definitely do your due diligence on these companies because, this is a gross generalization, but I would say probably a third of them are shady and they’re gonna end up taking a fall real soon.

Again, the telemedicine… It differs for in each state. I know in California for example, you can’t prescribe if you’ve not actually laid hands on the patient, but every state is different. Montana is different than California, et cetera. I’m glad of that because that’s something that not a lot of people talk about, and every now and then, you’ll see it on the forum. “Hey, I’ve got this job. Does this sound legit?” You kind of know in your gut. You gotta know in your gut.

I mean, it sounds great. That’s the problem. I mean, it sounds amazing. You do it from anywhere, anytime. They’re willing to pay. They’re quick to get back to you. Well, there’s a reason for that. They need someone and they need your license and they need your degree.

It’s those things that a lot of people think nonclinical jobs, but, again, there are definitely companies that are taking advantage of it. We kept talking about negative stuff.

I know. Let’s get into the positive!

Let’s get into the positive stuff. Doctors are listening to this working right now. Maybe they’re working full time. Maybe they’re looking to, reduce the amount of hours. They’re looking into nonclinical careers, but they don’t have the experience or they don’t know where to start, kind of an overgeneralization. I know that, but what kind of advice, what kinds of things can they be doing right now if they’re looking to transitioning to a nonclinical career?

The best thing you can do right now is free and you can do it yourself. It seems kind of contrary to what you might think because I know most people expect to get a list of different things that they can look into, and then they choose one of those and that’s it, but that is not the best way to go about doing this. You really need to look at yourself first. Where do you want to be one, three to five years from now? How much money do you want to be making? What location do you want to be in?

I know some of this is impossible to predict, but you can put together a plan, at least a skeleton of a plan somewhat easily, and that’s going to guide you because the perfect job is not the perfect job if you’re not living, say, near your family and you need to because you have aging parents or for some reason you just have to return to, I don’t know, Sacramento for some reason. If you’re not there, your life is just not worth it. I mean, again, a gross generalization, but you really need to figure out where you want to be. Then taking a look at how you work best.

Do you work best from home? Do you work best going to an office? Understanding those things is very, very helpful. Now, at some point, you do have to look at the reality. What is really available to you as well? What age are you? I’m not talking about age discrimination at all. I’m just talking about do you have time to gain a skill set that you may need to gain if that’s what you want to do? If your burning desire is to go to law school, great, but it doesn’t make sense to pay the money. Go, spend the time getting that degree, and then working up a little bit because there’s always gonna be that working up from any new jobs.

Maybe, instead, you look at law careers that aren’t going to require a law degree, and maybe it’s not being a JD or an esquire. I forget exactly what it is. Lynn Marie was coaching me on what it means to be a full attorney. I thought it was just a JD degree, but it’s much more than that.

Hey, you’re not the only one who she’s coached. Lynn Marie, I love her.

I know. We both do. Anyway, so maybe just then, “Okay, great.” You know you want to be in the legal field. You’re fascinated by that. You want to combine that with your medical background. Awesome. You don’t have to be an attorney. That helps you then start to cool down on different things rather than just opening up a book of just a thousand different careers, getting overwhelmed or jumping straight to telemedicine or utilization review.

I do want to add the caveat though that those careers are low-hanging fruit for a reason, so it is still somewhat, I don’t want to say easy, but if you want to get into that, it’s going to probably be a shorter road than completely changing your career. If that is your only option, if you are a certain age, you have certain family obligations, you have a spouse or kids or aging parents or whatever the case, there’s all kinds of different situations. Your dream may be to go into the legal field, but it just doesn’t make sense because you’re looking at your life on a big picture level.

Again, first step is to check yourself. Spend some time reflecting. Don’t spend two years. Then that’s two years wasted, but you don’t have to pay a lot of money. You don’t have to do anything real crazy. It’s really just being honest with yourself and what you want and then you can start going to some conferences or paying someone to help you. I’ve had too many people that have paid me a lot of money to help them, and we’ve gotten a lot done, but they didn’t do this first step. Then because of that, they’re still working clinically. They have an amazing resume, and they’re ready to do something else, but they haven’t gotten past really knowing where they want to be, and so finding those right opportunities.

You’re preaching to the choir. I’m a big stickler on the doctors that they love to get more degrees on their name. I have a friend who ran the MBA program at John Hopkins. I would ask him. I said, “How many of the doctors are actually using it?” He says, “Unfortunately, not as many as what we hope for. There are some who would definitely they might go into administration, et cetera, and then there are some, they’re looking for something else to do and they’d want to pay $35,000 a year to do that.”

I said, “You know what, if there is a job out there that you want and there’s someone who’s doing what you want to do, instead of paying all that money, ask to shadow them for a week, if that’s something you want to do for a few days just to see if this is something that you want, because the grass isn’t always greener just because this is maybe nonclinical. It just might be in the situation. I was in medicine, and then I was out of medicine, and then went back in. I have my own clinic because I still like medicine, but I wanted to live on my own terms.

We have an insurance free type clinic. We do have that kind of thing, but I enjoy that aspect of it. Just because it’s different to a nonclinical, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something that you may want to do, that you could still, like myself, enjoy medicine, but medicine is so broad. There’s still different opportunities that you can get into. For someone who is like, “I’m in clinical. I want out.” Don’t completely close that door. That’s my two cents on that.

No, that’s very astute. I find that most people have that experience when they’re starting to look at nonclinical, and they go back and forth. It’s really hard to figure out because you don’t know if you like something until you do it, so there’s a little bit of that as well. Another thing you can do is really get some freelance or project work, and there’s tons of that available now, much more than there even was five years ago. Sign up for some of these sites, freelancer, Fiverr. There’s a ton of them.

Upwork.com.

Yup. Yup. That’s another one. Yup. FlexJobs, and just get some experience doing something else and figure out, first of all, do I like this? Second of all, you’ll have some projects under your belt and experience. That’s the value that you bring. It unfortunately isn’t the fact that you’re a doctor, although we all know we can do anything, and it makes us amazing people.

That’s right.

Anyone who wants to hire us may Look at that and they may think, “Okay, well, they don’t have experience in banking or finance, and so next. Who’s the next applicant kind of thing?”

There’s a lot of stuff that are still out there. I’m glad you ended on a positive note. That’s great. Speaking about positive, we’ve got an event coming up on April. I’d call these physicians … It’s a mouthful. Physicians Helping Physicians celebration and network meeting for a PCCNM.

Love it.

Let’s talk about why you decided to put on an event. I believe this is the first, I guess, big event that you’ve put on before. Doctors who listen to this, why should they come to this besides meeting us, of course?

I know. I have been thinking about this for a very long time. As we talked about, we’ve been in this space for a long time ourselves, not only looking at something different, but helping others do something different. At some point, I feel like bringing us all together makes us stronger. It also is meeting people and hearing about their experiences in person can’t be … You cannot get that experience with Facebook groups. You cannot get that experience with podcasts. You can get a little bit of it, but it is not the same as coming together and actually meeting people, hearing their story live, hearing their advice live.

I’ve had that experience myself going to other conferences, and so I finally decided to do it. I’ve toyed with the idea. I actually had two other conferences scheduled over the years, and I ended up canceling them because it wasn’t the right time, and it wasn’t working out the way that I felt like it would be the best experience for the attendees. When I decided to try it again, I have a small army of people behind me helping me this time, other physicians. I call them the founding members, and they’ve agreed to really help me with putting this event on.

Then other people came out of the woodwork, so again, timing, so people like you, people like Lynn Marie, people like spokesperson. She’s been an anchor for over 25 years, and she’s going to come and speak and do some helping with just presenting yourself and if you want to get on TV, how to do it. It feels right this time. That’s evidenced by the amount of people who have already signed up to come. We have over 60 people already signed up for the first time, and that’s pretty amazing for a live event, because people have to travel there and they have to take time off.

I’m so grateful to those who have already signed up. It’s just going to be an amazing experience for everyone. People will get to hear about the different options in a nonclinical career. If you’re even considering it at all, you can find out what other people have done and hear their story and find out how hard it was for them. There’s gonna be tons of networking, so one of the benefits of what I’ve done is built a network of people easier. Please don’t hear that. I’m not guaranteeing anyone a job.

It happens all the time, where you’ll be speaking to someone who’s transitioned and they either are hiring or they know someone who’s hiring, and they’re willing to help you because they understand and they’ve been there. That’s the best way to get a job is networking anyway, and a good job at that. That’s what we’re doing. It’s the first time so it’s a little scary, but I am doing everything I can to make it a great experience, and hopefully it will be and it will be the first of many to come.

It’s happening April 6th and 7th in Austin, Texas.

Yes.

According to your website, the hotel, I just want to make sure, it is not sold out. You have a block of rooms apparently that may be got, but there is space at the hotel. Is that correct at least on the time of this recording?

That’s right. As of this recording right now, and today’s the sixth of March, the hotel is not sold out so you can still book a room at the conference hotel. The block of rooms that I reserved has been sold out now for a little over a month, but they didn’t give us a huge discount anyway. It’s the first time that the conference is being held, so you’re not really missing out by not getting that discount. There is still space.

I will close the registrations at some point in the next couple of weeks, just because I don’t want to overwhelm everyone and myself and making sure that I give a great experience to everyone, and for practical reasons. I have to give food, numbers, and things like that. If you haven’t signed up yet, you still have a week or two, but please do it sooner rather than later because people are registering in the next couple of days. I’ll try to let everyone know when that happens, and I’ll start a waiting list at that point.

What is the website where they go to register?

The website is Physicians Helping Physicians website. It’s www.p as in Paul, H as in Henry, physicians, with an S on the end, dotcom. If you go to that, you’ll go to the homepage, and you’ll see a button for the celebration meeting. You can click on that and it’ll take you to the page where you can register. The conference is donation only so you can choose to donate or not. I would appreciate a small donation just to cover the food expenses, but this is the first time I’m having it and so I wanted to make sure that everyone gets value out of it.

Next year, there will be a required registration fee. Take advantage now of the donation only. Are you there?

Yeah. Sorry. You’ve been cutting out. That’s okay.

No worries. Nope. That’s it.

That’s great. That donation only, that is true. I definitely know it can be very expensive to run events, especially with food and hotels trying to jack up the price and charging water for $5 or $10.

It’s crazy.

Believe me, I know that. Michelle is very generous with the donations. I would advise you to donate on the higher side if you can, because it just helps pay everything out. I guess, this is the first time I’m actually hearing it is that there might be a second one.

Yeah. As long as this is successful, and we’ll be doing surveys after the fact. As long as it works for everyone, then we’re gonna start doing this on a yearly basis. We may move the location at some point. We may have multiple locations. All remains to be seen. Let’s get through the first one.

Again, it’s coming up on April 6 and 7 in Austin, Texas. The Physicians Helping Physicians celebration and networking meeting or PHPCNM, hashtag.

That’s right. That’s right.

As we know it. I hope you can come. I’ll be there. I look forward. If I haven’t met you before, come there. If you heard this on the call, let me know and we’ll love to chat with you to see what your plans are, what your dreams are happening now because there is tremendous opportunity. We’ll end it up optimistic now. There is tremendous opportunity that is out there, but like you said, the best jobs, if that’s what you’re looking for, the best jobs aren’t usually advertising. It comes from networking, like going to events such as what we’re having.

Michelle, thank you so much on there. I know you’ve got a lot planned, especially with the event. Thank you for taking the time to join in with us on the podcast today.

Oh, thanks for having me, Mike.

Thanks again, guys. As always, go ahead and sign up on the website. Love to see at the meeting and as always, keep moving forward.

Filed Under: Articles, Interviews, NonClinical Jobs, Workshops

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