In this podcast episode, Mike Woo-Ming, MD, MPH, describes how and why he started his current business. He then takes us back to his successful side hustle while still in residency, and highlights many of the other clinical and non-clinical businesses he developed during his career.

Mike is a family physician, entrepreneur, speaker, author, medical marketing strategist, and consultant. He completed his master's degree in public health at the University of Michigan, received his medical education at Wayne State University, and completed the family medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic.

He started a software company and led the email marketing strategies of several multimillion-dollar online health companies. Mike also produces education for physicians seeking to create their own clinical or nonclinical business.

I’ve come to know Mike through interactions on Facebook and LinkedIn. He provides insights for group members related to non-clinical “side gigs,” internet marketing, and entrepreneurship.

As you’ll hear during today’s interview, he began his entrepreneurial ways even before he finished his family medicine residency. He's always been drawn to owning his own business and supporting physicians who want to do the same.

Mike's Story

Most of his insights come as he describes his multiple business ventures. He describes so many interesting twists and turns in his career, that it’s pretty remarkable. And I think we only scratched the surface.

Here's a list of some of his business ventures and other topics that we discuss:

  1. Making extra money while in residency, teaching undergraduates how to apply to medical school successfully;
  2. Generating income using Google Ads on his blog, and using freelance writers to supply much of the content;
  3. The importance of networking to develop relationships with mentors and potential partners;
  4. His success developing a software company;
  5. How he was able to maintain his license and return to clinical medicine by doing locum tenens work;
  6. Starting his wellness and weight loss clinic, then branching into medical spas;
  7. The failure of medical education to teach basic financial topics or how to negotiate an employment agreement;
  8. His passion for helping burned-out physicians find new career options, and how the death of a colleague inspired him;
  9. A new course he developed in which he teaches physicians how to become a writer, author, blogger, and consultant and how to market their businesses.

You may need to listen to the interview more than once. There are so many different side-gigs mentioned, and so many great observations by Mike, that I didn’t catch all of the pearls until the third time I went through it.

You can listen using the above player. If you prefer, you can listen on iTunes.

Physician Business Ownership

We covered a long career, with a lot of different options to pursue. What struck me is that physicians have so much experience and knowledge that there are many ways to capitalize on it if we need to.

Mike is very optimistic about the future of medicine. But it depends on physicians adapting and taking their place as leaders and business owners.

In Closing

I'll be presenting another episode of Physician NonClinical Careers next week. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you don't miss it, using the form below.

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Please, join me next time on Physician Nonclinical Careers.

Here is a list of resources mentioned in this episode:

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