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- Oct 16, 2014
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Although I don't really discuss it much on this board, but I am an MD. Up until COVID I never really discussed my medical background here at all, but during the early days especially I was involved in many different discussions here. I also have been fortunate to personally know MJ as well as many of the other long time members on the board here, and these personal friends know my background and history.
Granted I live in the USA, so the dynamics may be different in your country. But, I have found medicine to be a great adjunct to business. Based on your age, I assume you are a newly minted MD, possibly in residency training. Either way, you can make some decisions about your career and easily have the financial benefits without the time constraints many physicians have.
I'll tell you my story, because you might find it useful, and hopefully it can help you design a dual life to allow you to do what you want.
Although I went to medical school, I have always been very interested in technology. However, everything I know is 100% self taught, I have never had any technology or computer class in my life. I think this is important, because especially with the internet today anyone has the opportunity to learn any skills or gain any knowledge they need. I'm a tad older than you, 46...so early on most of what I learned was from books.
During college, as a side hustle I started working on peoples computers, which led to me upgrading them, and then finally starting a computer company building them. This was the very early internet days (early 90's). To promote this business I built a database of computer hardware companies with tech support links and drivers. It was called driverupdate.com, and it completely blew up on me. It was one of the primary go to websites for tech support at the time and we had massive traffic to it. I basically used this site to advertise our computer hardware company. Both companies did extremely well, but since I was in pre-med and had planned to go to medical school, I sold the hardware company but kept driverupdate.com which I continued to run throughout medical school.
For much of medical school, I did not do any non-medical things other than run my tech support website. After medical school I entered training in Plastic Surgery, which was and is a field that I loved. However, at the beginning of the residency there were new regulations enacted about how many workhours residents could work. I saw an opportunity to create a SAAS product to help residency programs manage their residents, because there was literally nothing on the market at the time to document and track compliance.
As a surgical resident, I was constantly on call overnight. So I would take my laptop with me, and in every moment of downtime that I had I would program and program and program. We released the product online, and it was very very well received. Within 6 months we had over 15,000 medical residents that we were tracking and managing. Granted this was a significant pull on my time, and I had to make a decision. I realized that it was not feasible to be a surgeon as well as run a demanding business. So 1/2 way through my plastic surgery training, I made the switch over to Radiology. I was definitely more passionate about plastics, I truly loved it...but in the grand scheme I realized I needed a medical career with unlimited flexibility.
I chose to go for a Radiology specialty degree. Radiology as a residency was much much less demanding, and I was able to run this business throughout my residency and into practice. Ultimately this business was offloaded due to getting divorced...which I was really upset about, but that's how the cookie crumbles. After residency I joined a partnership, but I was able to craft a schedule that was 7 on/7 off. This gave me tons of time to pursue my business interests further, although after my divorce and losing my company in the process I was pretty down for several years and just kind of floated along doing my medical stuff.
Around 2015 I was trying to get out of my funk and so I did a search for Entrepreneur Forum, and that's how I ended up here. I joined several discussions, and then in 2016 got back on the Pony as it were and started programming again. Someone on the forum here told me that I was wasting my time, and I should leverage my time earning money in medicine and then hire people through upwork to do my programming for me....it was a valid point since I could pay for an entire weeks programming in an hour or 2 of my time doing medical stuff.
So I began outsourcing, I had some problems with the agency I was using, so I asked the guy working at the agency if he wanted to work for me directly. He started off working for me on nights and weekends. I wanted to make a stronger relationship with him, so I booked a ticket and flew over to Vietnam to meet him. While I was there I offered for him to come work for me full time, but he was understandably hesitant. However, about 4 months later, he was experiencing some issues with his bosses at work, and agreed to come work for me full time....I made it worth his while and doubled his salary, which only seemed fair to me because he was taking a risk leaving a job where he was the #3 person and had a long track record.
One thing led to another, and some of his friends from his old job also wanted to come work for me....so we created a corporation over in Vietnam. Our business model has been to do outsourced projects, as well as our own internal company projects for direct sale. We ended up building an office in Ho Chi Minh, and currently we have about 20 employees working full time for us.
In 2017 I quit my medical partnership, and started doing per diem medical work. The reason that I did this is that I wanted to have 100% control of my schedule. Now I work the days I want to work. I work anything from 0 to 20 days a month, but I try and average 100-120 days a year of medical work. If you select specialty such as Radiology, Anesthesiology, or Emergency Medicine you can easily setup something like this. Anything where you have actual recurring patients this will be nearly impossible. But the point is if you want to manage your medical career to fit your needs you have options so long as you plan correctly.
About a year ago I entered into a joint venture with some other very experienced and successful people in the Mortgage and Refinance space. We have been creating a SAAS product to meet some unmet needs within this space, I provide the technical side and they provide the marketing and insight into the industry....so far this has worked out very well, and I have high hopes the company will continue to grow and expand.
I don't see anything I have done as difficult or that unique. The only thing is that if you want to do things you have to put yourself out there and run with it. I have failed plenty, I've had several projects crash and burn. I'm sure I'll have additional failures and additional successes. But this is the one nice thing about having a foothold in medicine, you always have the security of that in the background. And if you setup your career path the right way you can have as much flexibility and time to pursue other things as you want.
One bonus of having a medical title behind your name, is that at times it will buy you credibility (often unwarranted) and access to some people that might be harder to get otherwise. People will tend to take you more seriously at times.
Best of luck to you.
Granted I live in the USA, so the dynamics may be different in your country. But, I have found medicine to be a great adjunct to business. Based on your age, I assume you are a newly minted MD, possibly in residency training. Either way, you can make some decisions about your career and easily have the financial benefits without the time constraints many physicians have.
I'll tell you my story, because you might find it useful, and hopefully it can help you design a dual life to allow you to do what you want.
Although I went to medical school, I have always been very interested in technology. However, everything I know is 100% self taught, I have never had any technology or computer class in my life. I think this is important, because especially with the internet today anyone has the opportunity to learn any skills or gain any knowledge they need. I'm a tad older than you, 46...so early on most of what I learned was from books.
During college, as a side hustle I started working on peoples computers, which led to me upgrading them, and then finally starting a computer company building them. This was the very early internet days (early 90's). To promote this business I built a database of computer hardware companies with tech support links and drivers. It was called driverupdate.com, and it completely blew up on me. It was one of the primary go to websites for tech support at the time and we had massive traffic to it. I basically used this site to advertise our computer hardware company. Both companies did extremely well, but since I was in pre-med and had planned to go to medical school, I sold the hardware company but kept driverupdate.com which I continued to run throughout medical school.
For much of medical school, I did not do any non-medical things other than run my tech support website. After medical school I entered training in Plastic Surgery, which was and is a field that I loved. However, at the beginning of the residency there were new regulations enacted about how many workhours residents could work. I saw an opportunity to create a SAAS product to help residency programs manage their residents, because there was literally nothing on the market at the time to document and track compliance.
As a surgical resident, I was constantly on call overnight. So I would take my laptop with me, and in every moment of downtime that I had I would program and program and program. We released the product online, and it was very very well received. Within 6 months we had over 15,000 medical residents that we were tracking and managing. Granted this was a significant pull on my time, and I had to make a decision. I realized that it was not feasible to be a surgeon as well as run a demanding business. So 1/2 way through my plastic surgery training, I made the switch over to Radiology. I was definitely more passionate about plastics, I truly loved it...but in the grand scheme I realized I needed a medical career with unlimited flexibility.
I chose to go for a Radiology specialty degree. Radiology as a residency was much much less demanding, and I was able to run this business throughout my residency and into practice. Ultimately this business was offloaded due to getting divorced...which I was really upset about, but that's how the cookie crumbles. After residency I joined a partnership, but I was able to craft a schedule that was 7 on/7 off. This gave me tons of time to pursue my business interests further, although after my divorce and losing my company in the process I was pretty down for several years and just kind of floated along doing my medical stuff.
Around 2015 I was trying to get out of my funk and so I did a search for Entrepreneur Forum, and that's how I ended up here. I joined several discussions, and then in 2016 got back on the Pony as it were and started programming again. Someone on the forum here told me that I was wasting my time, and I should leverage my time earning money in medicine and then hire people through upwork to do my programming for me....it was a valid point since I could pay for an entire weeks programming in an hour or 2 of my time doing medical stuff.
So I began outsourcing, I had some problems with the agency I was using, so I asked the guy working at the agency if he wanted to work for me directly. He started off working for me on nights and weekends. I wanted to make a stronger relationship with him, so I booked a ticket and flew over to Vietnam to meet him. While I was there I offered for him to come work for me full time, but he was understandably hesitant. However, about 4 months later, he was experiencing some issues with his bosses at work, and agreed to come work for me full time....I made it worth his while and doubled his salary, which only seemed fair to me because he was taking a risk leaving a job where he was the #3 person and had a long track record.
One thing led to another, and some of his friends from his old job also wanted to come work for me....so we created a corporation over in Vietnam. Our business model has been to do outsourced projects, as well as our own internal company projects for direct sale. We ended up building an office in Ho Chi Minh, and currently we have about 20 employees working full time for us.
In 2017 I quit my medical partnership, and started doing per diem medical work. The reason that I did this is that I wanted to have 100% control of my schedule. Now I work the days I want to work. I work anything from 0 to 20 days a month, but I try and average 100-120 days a year of medical work. If you select specialty such as Radiology, Anesthesiology, or Emergency Medicine you can easily setup something like this. Anything where you have actual recurring patients this will be nearly impossible. But the point is if you want to manage your medical career to fit your needs you have options so long as you plan correctly.
About a year ago I entered into a joint venture with some other very experienced and successful people in the Mortgage and Refinance space. We have been creating a SAAS product to meet some unmet needs within this space, I provide the technical side and they provide the marketing and insight into the industry....so far this has worked out very well, and I have high hopes the company will continue to grow and expand.
I don't see anything I have done as difficult or that unique. The only thing is that if you want to do things you have to put yourself out there and run with it. I have failed plenty, I've had several projects crash and burn. I'm sure I'll have additional failures and additional successes. But this is the one nice thing about having a foothold in medicine, you always have the security of that in the background. And if you setup your career path the right way you can have as much flexibility and time to pursue other things as you want.
One bonus of having a medical title behind your name, is that at times it will buy you credibility (often unwarranted) and access to some people that might be harder to get otherwise. People will tend to take you more seriously at times.
Best of luck to you.
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