Thomas, Ortho and Trauma Surgery Resident from Dijon, France

[FreakyThomas]

Hello everyone,

I am currently reading the Millionaire Fastlane and I thought it would be a good idea to read some stories here so I could get inspired or have new ideas.

I really would like to thank the author for this amazing book, I've read a few about becoming wealthy and it is definitely the most interesting and eye-opening. Sometimes I would read a book about slowlaning and I would become even more unmotivated than before. Now I understand why.

It freed me from feeling guilty about having ambitious goals, and made me realize I was not the only one !

About me ; I am currently 9 years after graduating high school, in the middle of surgery residency. It can be really hard and even if patient's gratefulness is sometimes great, it's clearly not enough for me to be happy all my life, I think. It's a slavery. It was a big deception for me when I realized this. I worked hard at university to get there and I thought it was for having a cool life, and I kind of had a disillusion that left me a bit depressed. Every step is like " don't worry, the hard work is now, but if you pass it, you'll be quiet for life " but the reality is, it always get harder in some way, especially in France where work conditions for doctors deteriorated in the last 20-30 years.

I still want to finish my surgeon training because I invested so much time and energy in it, I would never be able to quit. But now I start to think that may be I will never settle as a surgeon. This new look on life also relieved the career pressure and made me able to get more fun about this job (because it can really be, and I would really recommend it for someone passionate enough).

The difficulty will be to start building my income vehicle parallel to my studies, and finish it when I'm done, but I'm strongly motivated.

I grew up next to Marseille in the south France, had to leave to Dijon (in Burgundy, where's there's a lot of fog, great food and awesome wines) to start my residency. I would happy to discuss about it with anybody interested.

I read a lot of books about different topics, one of my favourite is Psychology ; I really think that anything can be learned and that's why I'm here.

Sorry for my english, thanks for reading this and see you in interesting threads

 

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[mike24601]

You can definitely reach Fastlane status as a surgeon, but it goes without saying you have to have passion for what you are doing. You definitely have the opportunity to see deficiencies and needs in your field on a daily basis and then innovate solutions. In the field of medicine, you're affecting people with magnitude rather than scale, but some surgeons have done both. Dr. Denton Cooley and Dr. Michael DeBakey, two of the greatest heart surgeons who ever lived, affected patients with both scale and magnitude.

They pioneered new techniques and devices to treat diseases of the heart, each operated on more than 100,000 human hearts throughout their long careers, and endured scrutiny and failure like you wouldn't imagine--but they had passion. In the heady days of the 1960s when heart transplantation was first beginning, patient after patient expired within weeks and months of the operation. Some said it could not be done and that the practice was immoral and should be stopped. They chose to keep going, and they were both multi-millionaires by the end of their lives. DeBakey continued to work until a few days before he died, a few months shy of 100 years old.

It seems you have little passion for what you do. In your line of work, depression is very common. Even suicide, because a lot of doctors and dentists spend their entire lives preparing for their careers and once they get there, they find themselves immensely disillusioned. I think saving lives amounts to a pretty cool life, but I am not in your perspective. Anyway, keep going and see what happens. In the meantime, start searching for needs and improvement. Medical science is ALWAYS advancing. There is always something that needs improvement!!

 

[FreakyThomas]

You can definitely reach Fastlane status as a surgeon, but it goes without saying you have to have passion for what you are doing. You definitely have the opportunity to see deficiencies and needs in your field on a daily basis and then innovate solutions. In the field of medicine, you're affecting people with magnitude rather than scale, but some surgeons have done both. Dr. Denton Cooley and Dr. Michael DeBakey, two of the greatest heart surgeons who ever lived, affected patients with both scale and magnitude.

They pioneered new techniques and devices to treat diseases of the heart, each operated on more than 100,000 human hearts throughout their long careers, and endured scrutiny and failure like you wouldn't imagine--but they had passion. In the heady days of the 1960s when heart transplantation was first beginning, patient after patient expired within weeks and months of the operation. Some said it could not be done and that the practice was immoral and should be stopped. They chose to keep going, and they were both multi-millionaires by the end of their lives. DeBakey continued to work until a few days before he died, a few months shy of 100 years old.

It seems you have little passion for what you do. In your line of work, depression is very common. Even suicide, because a lot of doctors and dentists spend their entire lives preparing for their careers and once they get there, they find themselves immensely disillusioned. I think saving lives amounts to a pretty cool life, but I am not in your perspective. Anyway, keep going and see what happens. In the meantime, start searching for needs and improvement. Medical science is ALWAYS advancing. There is always something that needs improvement!!

Thank you for your answer, you are totally right. I think I'm not passionate enough to put all the effort and the work into reaching the fastlane via surgery, which is, I think, not the easiest way. Still everyday I look for problems and potential solutions and may be some day I'll come with an interesting idea. To my actual point of view, to provide an innovation in surgery, you need to be incredibly skilled and brilliant in your field, which require massive work over many and many years. I believe it is more difficult than in other field because of the cost of studies, health norms, etc. May be I'm looking at it the wrong way, I try to stay open minded about it.

 

[Iammelissamoore]

I still want to finish my surgeon training because I invested so much time and energy in it, I would never be able to quit. But now I start to think that may be I will never settle as a surgeon. This new look on life also relieved the career pressure and made me able to get more fun about this job (because it can really be, and I would really recommend it for someone passionate enough).

The difficulty will be to start building my income vehicle parallel to my studies, and finish it when I'm done, but I'm strongly motivated.

Firstly, Welcome and I'm sure you are MOST happy you've put your hands onto TMF . You know what, don't be too hard on yourself. The other day I was checking out dental procedures, as I'm looking to get some work done on my teeth and I came across a Dentist who invented an aspect of Dentistry that is LITERALLY changing lives.

TMF and Unscripted teaches first and foremost that where business is concerned, we do it with the intention of creating solutions and making people's lives more meaningful. All isn't lost because you spent a long while studying for your profession.

I saw you mentioned there are a lot of problems in your workplace, this is a great place for you to see where your expertise, through your studies, can help you invent new systems that can help the medical fraternity, not only in your country, but globally. MJ ALWAYS speaks about this, so, there is that flip side where your studies would not have gone to waste.

What problems are there within the medical fraternity that you need to pay attention to? Can meaningful products or services be created from these problems to provide solutions? If the answer is yes to that, then, you are already at the idea stage, TMF is your guideline for building a process now from Idea Stage to Successful Execution and Positive Client/Customer After-Sales Relationships, it won't exactly be an easy walk in the park, as we know all things worthwhile aren't; BUT, it WILL be meaningful to others AND your studies would have prepped you for this moment.

That same dentist I mentioned earlier, because of what he is doing and the Countless problems he is solving - as compared to many other dentists, I am ALREADY sold on actually going to him when I'm ready to have my work done. I live in the Caribbean, his place is in Califonia, USA, surely there are MANY Dentists in my country, and Region, but none doing what he is doing, he's already won me. His website is full of information regarding what he does, his invention and there are countless before and after photos with patients.

I love that MJ always stresses the fact that people do NOT care what your capabilities are, what they DO care about is that they have a Problem and you have a Solution. You're possibly sitting on a golden egg, you just have to overstand when and how to hatch it, that's what TMF and Unscripted is about.

I wish you the best in your endeavours ahead.

 

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[FreakyThomas]

Thank you very much !

I definetely need to rely on my field and experience to find new opportunities, you're right, so I can make it a strenght ! Especially because not every surgeon is looking to become an entrepreneur. Thanks

 

[mistersam]

--- [French Answer] ---
Salut Thomas et bienvenue (je suis français aussi).

Bon courage dans ton aventure, d'après ton profil c'est vrai que ça à l'air compliquer de continuer dans la voie de la chirurgie, à mon avis tu devrais rapidement arrêter et commencer ton aventure entrepreneuriale... Facile à dire mais difficile à faire..le risque est qu'en t'investissant trop tu aie du mal à faire machine arrière.

Une piste serait de travailler à la mise en place d'applis (Web/Mobiles) ou de services numériques dédiés aux chirurgiens par ex. Connaissant le milieu tu aurais un bon bagage de départ.

As-tu lu le dernier livre de MJ : Unscripted ?

--- [English Trad] ---
Welcome Thomas,

Good luck, i think you should reconsider your future and maybe give up the surgery before it's too late.
One way would be to consider developing web/mobiles solutions for surgerists (Saas Product etc...)

Have you read Unscripted ?

Samir

 

[FreakyThomas]

Salut,

Merci pour ta réponse. En effet je pense que la solution réside dans le fait de trouver une opportunité ou une idée de business en lien avec ma formation et mes études. Cela me permettrait aussi de garder un pied dans ce milieu que j'apprécie et qui me fascine toujours malgré tout. Malheureusement, ce n'est pas facile de trouver quelque chose qui remplisse les 5 conditions pour la fastlane, étant donné que beaucoup de choses sont verrouillées par la sécurité sociale (manque de contrôle). Les outils numériques sont une excellente suggestion, j'y pense depuis longtemps sans avoir réussi pour l'instant à trouver une idée assez bonne à mes yeux pour passer à l'action. Cependant le fait de devenir entrepreneur se concrétise de plus en plus dans mon esprit et je pense que ce n'est plus qu'une question de temps avant que je me lance (probablement en terminant mes études également).

Je suis actuellement en train de lire MFL (a peu près 60%). Je vais sûrement commencer à lire Unscripted juste après l'avoir terminé.

(English)

Hi,

Thanks for your answer. Indeed I think that the solution would be finding an opportunity or a business idea related to my training and my studies. This would also allow me to stay in this field which I like and am still fascinated about. Unfortunately, it's not easy to find something that fills the 5 conditions for the fastlane, especially control since a lot of things are controlled by social security. Developing a numeric tool is an excellent suggestion, I've been thinking about it for a long time without managing finding a good enough idea to my eyes so I can start getting in action. However the fact of becoming an entrepreneur is more and more concretizing in my head and it's only a matter of time before I get started (probably also while finishing my residency).

I currently am reading MFL (about 60%). I'll probably start reading Unscripted soon after I finish it.

 

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[FreakyThomas]

Hi guys,

A little update.

I finished reading MFL and Unscripted while in vacation by mid-July. Really liked it, it motivated me a lot to take more action.

I looked for ideas for a few days and decided to give a shot to the one who was related to surgery. Long story short, I started to develop a Personal/Low-cost Arthroscopy Simulator.

I had a cool schedule this summer so I had some time to work on it and it was really cool, but I soon realised I couldn't build a complex thing like this on my own, or in a too long time window.

I think I need to outsource technical parts of the development, even if I like doing it, or I'll never be able to finish it.
I don't really know how to do that, though, do you guys have an idea ?

I was thinking websites for outsourcing, or even recruiting an engineering student to get on board on this project with me. What do you think ?
Do you guys have any experience or piece of advice about this ?

I can try something, any idea you have, even if it requires a little money and give you the feedback here so may be it will help other people on the forum.

Needless to say I'm back to real life at the big hospital and don't have much time to spend on this, but I'll definitely keep you in touch. Even if it's long term, I will never give up my dream of becoming free

 

[FreakyThomas]

Hello guys,

I keep reading this forum and seeing people doing stuff and taking action, while sharing it made me feel like posting something here.

I've been working a little bit on my simulator project. At first I wanted to do it 100% virtual reality, by building a controller, but technically it was too difficult for me, and I've decided to first try a much simpler way to do the same thing.

I currently have a fiver engineer looking for a solution to mimic an arthroscope using a much cheaper camera, he has technical difficulties too, I hope he will find a way. I have been for this time looking for the best ways to develop the other parts of the "simulator", something to use the camera with.

I've ordered some objects close to what I'd want on Aliexpress and tested them in order to find way to make them work like I wanted with some success. Currently I'll try to see with the suppliers of the objects I liked if they can customize it to better suit my needs. If they can't for a reasonnable quantity/price, I can also do it myself at first to see if I meet some sells with my products, because I'm still not sure if there's really a NEED for my idea. I totally don't know how to do this, how to approach them, how to negotiate. But If I don't do it anyway, I'll lose myself in tutorials, books, etc on the best way to do it and I'll never do it because I will never feel ready (and I'll probably never be since I don't have the time to study it properly). Once I'll have a Minimum Viable Product, I'll fastly set a light website for orders with a few pictures, videos, and try to sell it with facebook advertising (IMHO the best way to target orthopaedic surgery residents).

I don't really want to use my network or work friends to jump start it, because honestly, I feel a little bit ridiculous about it. I kinda wanna go "anonymous" on this and may be, come out of the closet later if I see it work a little.

It was really challenging to find some time and energy to spend on this, but when I feel like, I try to do little things, and keep going, even if it is at a very slow speed. My aim is to never stop until it works, and probably I will be able to spend more time on this in the near future (I will have a little less work for the next 6 months). Will keep you guys in touch. There's probably something to learn for someone about this experiment, so I'll write my progress here. Even if nobody is reading it right now, may be it will, depending on how it goes later!

Also, I do it to participate a little in this amazing forum that keeps me motivated. Of course if you have any piece of advice I'd be glad to hear it.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Welcome Thomas, so glad the book resonated with you.

Hope to see more of you here.

--- [French Answer] ---

French TMF version finally coming out soon, yea!

 

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[FreakyThomas]

Welcome Thomas, so glad the book resonated with you.

Hope to see more of you here.



French TMF version finally coming out soon, yea!

Thank you for your answer !
If you need any help, rereading, anything, for the French version of TMF please ask!!

 

[FreakyThomas]

Hi guys,

I read some posts about ideas and stuff on the forum and it made me feel like posting something here.
I'm having a little more time available right now because of an easier ward to take care of, and despite having to write my thesis to become an MD in september.

The fiverr guy told me he didn't manage to build my camera and gave me full refund. What a time loss ! I start from scratch but of course I won't give up.

I decided to simplify my product to the maximum to get an MVP as fast as possible, and complexify it later. So I placed a new fiverr order with another engineer, for a simpler model of my product idea. We are developing this right now and the firsts drafts seems promising.

Since I was waiting for this I also took some time to find a name, buy domain and hosting and set up a simple woocommerce website. Everything will be ready as I soon as I have my product. I think I'll try to sell it before getting a lot of units to confirm it answers a NEED.

I do not really have a competition because other products answering the same need are really more complicated and really expensive, so I don't target the same audience actually. Now, will my audience buy my product ?...

I have to say that every time I come here, I wish I did more often. Seeing all the people posting about taking action is so motivating!

Will keep you in touch when I have the drawings completed for my product. Actually I don't really know how to go from industrial drawings to production, I have selected a few Alibaba furnishers in the same domain, I'll try to message them to get a price for a small number of units. I'll probably get a little ripped off but at least this will leave some room for improvements later.

 

[FreakyThomas]

Hi,

My MVP is almost designed, thanks to a new fiverr guy. It's way more basic than the previous one, I sometimes loose motivation because I have doubts it will really sell, but well, now It's designed, I better try my best.
I had a lot of interest reading the Saas topics. It's crazy how the CENTS are almost "native" with this sort of products. Also, I really liked coding when I was a teenager, and in the last years I kept a little touch with making web apps and websites related to my job and with the local resident association. So I have a particular interest in SaaS (software as a service).

I made some shallow research and thinking about health-related already existing Saas in France. A really simple startup called "Doctolib" sells a basic service to physicians, something that seems "easy" to make. They started in 2014 and now capitalize for more than A FREAKIN BILLION DOLLAR.

They just bought a competitor for 60 million!!!!

WOAH... Learning this just blew my mind. I really made a promise to myself to look for problems and, therefore, for ideas of another kind of health-related Saas. I think, beside of having greater potential, I would have much more fun designing and developing it !

My main problem is that I find it very difficult to find ideas and opportunities. I know it's a limiting belief from my part, a lack of effort, but everything I find seems really lame. I've decided that while I'll keep advancing my simulator (looking for a manufacturer and get it tested by my ortho residents friends for feedback, and try to get my first sales as soon as I have pictures, from the website I already designed and paid ads), I'll try to come up with new ideas everyday. I try to think of problems I've come across and to ask friends who already graduated.

It seems that "doctolib" isn't perfect and have a relatively low share of the market (10% of physicians). Maybe start from something like this and try to make it better, by listening to customers (lean-startup way) would be a good idea, I don't know. It seems doable while competing a billion dollar compagny is frightening.

I know I won't get much reads here but if anyone as a feedback or an opinion about it I would be glad to hear it.

Besides, if anyone have questions or anything related to the medical field, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

 

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