Interview with Dr. Jonathan Jaffin – 405
On this week's episode of the PNC podcast, Dr. Jonathan Jaffin shares how his 30-year career in military medicine paved the way for a first class consulting position at a Top 4 Global Consulting Company.
He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the consulting world and describes how to leverage clinical credibility and leadership experience to drive change at a system-wide level. And he shares his tips for navigating client travel, optimizing compensation, and building a reputation without an MBA.
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Building a Diversified Medical Career with Part-Time Consulting
Dr. Jaffin’s journey shows how consulting can be part of a well-rounded career, without giving up clinical work entirely. While he moved into full-time consulting after his military service, many firms offer flexible roles that make it possible to continue practicing while developing advisory expertise.
This setup helps maintain clinical credibility, keeps board certification active, and strikes a balance between patient care and broader healthcare impact. It also provides a low-risk way to explore consulting, allowing gradual growth in the field while relying on the stability of ongoing clinical work.
Maximizing Value in First Class Consulting Opportunities
Success in consulting means offering more than just medical expertise—it’s about turning that knowledge into practical solutions that connect clinical practice with organizational strategy. Jonathan points out that ambiguity is part of the job. Clients may think they need help in one area when the real issue lies somewhere else, so it takes tact and trust to guide them in the right direction.
Building a strong reputation, or personal eminence, is key. That often comes from publishing, public speaking, leading committees, and staying active in professional circles. While consulting may not offer the same income as procedural specialties, it provides steady pay and a better work-life balance. For many, the chance to solve complex, system-level problems is just as rewarding as patient care.
Summary
For physicians interested in exploring consulting career opportunities or learning more about Dr. Jaffin's experience transitioning from clinical leadership to advisory roles, he welcomes direct outreach through LinkedIn. Dr. Jaffin also recommends the SEAK NonClinical Careers Conference as a valuable resource for physicians considering consulting and other nonclinical paths. He has presented there multiple times and found that it brings together a diverse group of physicians who have successfully transitioned to various nonclinical roles, including consultant.
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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 405
Opportunities With First Class Consulting Firms Are Fantastic
Interview with Dr. Jonathan Jaffin
John: You know, I'm very familiar with consultants for my job as a CMO at a hospital. We used to have consultants in there all the time. And so it's kind of weird that after, you know, 400 episodes, I've never interviewed a consultant from a large consulting firm like we're going to do today. So I'm really happy to be able to introduce you to today's guest, Dr. Jonathan Jaffin. Welcome to the show.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Thanks, John. It's great to be here with you and sort of excited to tell my story.
John: Excellent. That's fantastic. So I've done a little intro, you know, that kind of I recorded separate from this. But why don't you start by just telling us about your background. You have a long background and in practicing and then not practicing. So tell us a little bit about what you did as a physician.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So as a physician, I did my internship and residency in general surgery and did that at Walter Reed because I was in the army, stayed in the army 31 years, so long army career. I then went and went to Honduras as a general surgeon, came back to Walter Reed as a general surgeon, went and was a group surgeon for Fifth Special Forces Group when I was a lot younger and a lot better shaped than I am now. And then went and went to Command and General Staff College with the Army. So have always done some nonclinical stuff. At Command and General Staff College, spent a year there and then went and did a fellowship in trauma surgery and critical care medicine. So went back into clinical medicine, was chief of trauma at Brooke Army Medical Center for my next job.
Then went and was the division surgeon for 4th Infantry Division up at Fort Hood, Texas. Went back, did some stuff with combat developments, took command of a hospital, a small hospital at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Then did my war college equivalent instead of going to the War College, I worked with Health and Human Services for a year. And that was supposed to be an easy year, but turned out to be 2001, 2002, if you can imagine with the anthrax attacks and everything else, we were busy. And so we had to set up the Secretary's Command Center. We spent long hours working and making ourselves helpful to the nation as a whole while we set up DHS, while we answered the anthrax attacks and everything else.
Following that, I took command at Walter Reed and that was when the war in Iraq broke out. So we got quite a few soldiers back. Fortunately, it was before all the scandals at Walter Reed, but it's still, my boss ended up getting fired as Surgeon General. And so that was not a good thing for my career progress.
John: Oh boy.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: But, then went and did the assignments for the medical corps. So I was the branch chief for the medical corps. Then did, was deputy commander and for nine months the acting commander up at the medical research command that the army runs. Then went back to the surgeon general's office where I served for the warrior transition units as chief of staff. And then for the Surgeon General, basically his CMO, they called it Director of Health Policy and Services, but it was the equivalent of a CMO, Army Surgeon General. And then, then retired from the Army.
When I retired from the Army, got a phone call from a friend of mine, and I had applied to a number of places, including CMO jobs. And he said, hey, have you ever thought about consulting? And since he outranked me, I said, no, sir, I haven't. And he said, come see me. So I did. And we talked. And he said, well, Deloitte would be very interested in somebody like you. We actually have 20 or 30 docs who work for Deloitte. And you can open doors and use your clinical expertise because they want to see somebody who's been in the trenches the same as they have.
And so that was always important was the ability to translate my experiences to what they were facing or what we were trying to teach them or help them solve whatever problems they were having. Now, the interesting thing with consulting is you have to be willing that they won't take your recommendations or that they may ask you for help with one problem. And you may see that problem is really something completely different. And so you have to be willing, one, to not have your recommendations taken, two, be willing to say, you know, I think we'd be better off solving this problem than that problem. And you have to be always looking for the next opportunity.
Now, what I liked about consulting was that I always was doing something different. So whether it was working with the military health system or their legacy EHR systems, whether it was helping a VA with coaching their directors at a medical center, whether it was helping physicians learn about clinical documentation and its importance, had a wide variety of jobs at Deloitte. And so never got bored, which was one of the things. Was I well rewarded? Yes, I would say I was well rewarded. Was it as much as a trauma surgeon makes? Probably not. But the hours were much, much better.
As a consultant, you spend a good bit of time, unless you're a government consultant, on the road. So you have to be willing to travel. So that's an important consideration in your consideration. You have to have some clinical expertise. And that's very important because people will ask you, why should I listen to you? And if all you've done is gone to medical school, they probably won't pay much attention to you, even if you're giving great advice. So you want to make sure that you've got some clinical chops under your belt, that they will respect what you've done clinically as well as what you've done beyond that. And so that's why I say it's important to be a good doctor first, then you can be a good consultant.
People ask often whether or not you need an MBA. I never got an MBA. So I didn't, obviously you don't need one. There are people who have them. There are people who have an MPH and other degrees. I have none of those. But what was most important was knowing people. Helping them, knowing that they can call me with their problems and building that relationship of trust with them either from previously, and those were some of the strongest relationships to the ones where we had to develop relationships, but we still developed the relationships because it was still important to have that.
John: Now, just to give context to the listeners here, so you were doing this full time, I believe, for over 10 years, is that correct?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Yes, I did. I did it for probably 11 years full time.
John: OK. And I'll comment too on your background, because what I've seen in a lot of these nonclinical jobs, first of all, they love someone from the military. I think you have a little bit of an advantage because they assume you have that understanding of leadership, you know, which you have a lot of, and you throw that in with the clinical, you know, if you've been a CMO or a CEO equivalent in military, I mean, you have got a lot of leadership experience. So
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Thank you.
John: Did you run into other physicians that were consultants, number one of any type? And how many, if any, were had a background in the military?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So we had a mixture. We had a number who'd been either department chiefs or CMOs of civilian hospitals. We had a number who'd been military, including ones who'd been at the surgeon general level in the military. So we had, so there were, there were some who were very, very experienced with leadership and had spent a career at, a leadership position. And obviously it's important that you have a good Rolodex because they want you to, to be able to call people and to call on people and to help generate business and your reputation lives with you, so you don't want to burn bridges as you leave the door, because those are the people who you're going to be working with again.
John: What's it like working in a team and what's the schedule like? Are you constantly doing something? Is there any downtime? Are you leading the team? Are you just a member of the team?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: It would vary. So it varies depending on what the problem is that they're trying to solve. So one team that I would be a member of was a team that was looking at revenue. So clinical documentation is an important part of revenue. So I would be the one who would educate the physicians on the clinical documentation, but I wouldn't review the charts to see which charts were necessarily had room for improvement and things like that. At the same time, I would be... I might lead a team that that had a purely clinical or a more clinical background. So the quality assurance team or something like that. So it would vary depending on the team itself and what was needed within that.
John: Now, I think Deloitte is known as maybe even a global company. Were you basically based in the US?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So I did all my work in the US, but we did have stuff who folks who worked with our English firm, our German firm or Japanese firm. South American and Central American and Mexican firms, Canadian firm. We had a physician call with physicians from all over the globe. And that was really interesting because they obviously had a very different perspective. Often they work in, you know, have to work with a socialized medicine system and things like that. And so it was very interesting just comparing notes with how their experiences were different than ours.
John: I'll get into the nitty gritty here as much as I can, but how much were you on the road traveling versus working at home remotely or on calls?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I was probably on the road two weeks a month. So about half the time I was on the road, that was more my choice. I could have stayed home more and done a more government type consulting job because obviously that was an important part as well. But probably two weeks on the road. I got my frequent flight on Mars.
John: And was it regional in the sense that would they try, if they have dozens of physicians working for them, you, would they say, well, we're going to send this crew to the East coast and we're going to use Jonathan for the West coast?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: It was more, we had areas of expertise. So I was, I had the expertise with the military. I had the expertise with clinical documentation. There were others who had Cerner expertise or Epic expertise. And so we did an Epic or a Cerner implementation, may ask them instead.
John: Okay, yeah. So really kind of fit the best team together. And I assume you worked with lot of different people over the period that you were there.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Quite. I mean, traveled all over the globe, or all over the country.
John: Yep.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I had one week where I was in Bismarck, North Dakota, Des Moines, Iowa, and Little Rock, Arkansas, all in one week. So sometimes you went to places that you otherwise might not visit.
John: Yeah. So you gotta have a lot of flexibility. You gotta be able to, you're not tied to your home for whatever reason, you're raising 17 kids or something, you know.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: No, and luckily I'm a little bit older. My family's grown and things like that so that I was able to travel as much as I did and it wouldn't, the kids didn't worry where I was.
John: Right, right. Okay, now, you kind of, I mean, you hadn't planned this transition for, you know, 10 years or anything. It sort of all happened pretty quickly. Now, if you were advising someone else, let's say they're not in the military and, who knows, maybe they're just practicing, maybe dabbled a little bit in, you know, different leadership roles at the hospital or something. Any advice that you would give in terms of if you were really thinking about this?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I think one thing that's really, really important is to get leadership roles, whether it's chief of your department, whether it's running your practice, if you're more an outpatient practice, whether it's being a CMO or things like that. First of all, you make connections, you meet people. And one thing with consulting, you're more likely to consult with somebody you trust, somebody you know, somebody that you're concerned with, than somebody de novo. So the credentials always help, but they also would rather work with somebody they know already. And so that was, I would say, meet as many people, go to meetings. If you can, get yourself involved with the leadership in various organizations, because that also will translate to connections and people knowing you and developing a reputation.
One of the things that very important is to develop personal eminence. And so you want to be somebody that people will come to with problems. You want to be an expert in something. And whether you get that from being on a society membership leadership position, whether you get that by being a leader in the hospital or things like that, or leader in your medical system, those are ways to develop expertise and eminence and leadership.
John: Now, did you get a sense of or ever meet others doing consulting for other big consulting firms? Any feedback on that?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: We would meet. And I think most people, the experience is going to be fairly similar. Lloyd's got a fairly good size health care practice. Any of the big four, I would say, does as well. But it's important that and there also are boutique firms that specialize in healthcare. And you may find that that's a better fit for you than a great big firm. I mean, we were one of thousands at Deloitte. And one thing I did enjoy doing that was unrelated to my medical profession was I helped with the Welcome to Deloitte consulting. So I helped with that class, taught that class multiple times and enjoyed that too because you'd see such a broad range of expertise and experience and you could really help people as they made that transition from say industry into consulting.
John: You know sometimes when physicians are thinking about shifting, let's say they're just burnt out or whatever, you know it's not necessarily a good reason to leave medicine but you know they may practice 20-30 years, thinking of doing something else. And one of the things that holds them back is that they feel like they're sort of abandoning patient care and abandoning patients. But do you have a recollection of like some project you worked on that really ultimately was gonna help so many patients? You know, it kind of gives you the sense, well, I am helping patients actually, but in a different way.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Absolutely. So I spent a good bit of time working with the VA leadership, especially at one of the VA medical centers. And we were able to markedly increase one, their throughput. So they were able to see more patients. Two, I think we helped them be more responsive to the needs of their community. So that not only were they seeing more patients, but they were able to help them more. And so that was one of the things that we did that I would say, yes, you're not you miss visual touch and you aren't going to do that, but you're definitely going to do things that affect a large number of patients that affect how a hospital responds to patients.
You're going to help people see that the patients are people too and need to be treated as such, not just physicians who usually get that, but sometimes administrators don't and sometimes People view the patients as a burden. And so you're able to bring your clinical experience in and say, you know, we actually were able to do this because of this patient, because this patient had this issue and brought it to our attention.
John: Now, I think it'd probably be pretty common that someone who had had a fairly long career would end up, you know, jumping into this because just the... You know, they're freed up a little bit and they're trying to do something different. Do you think some of that was really early in their career? Let's say after 10 years or so, did you meet some that had been physicians that have been with Deloitte for a long time?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Absolutely. And so often then I think it does make sense to get an MBA because you're going to be a longer time at the company. You're going to try and grow within the company. You're going to start at a lower level. And so that helps you get promoted within the company and things like that. So I think all of those play a role. Still have practiced medicine, so you still have that rapport with other doctors. And I think that's also important. And then it's important never to forget where you came from. So the clinical side of things still plays an important role. And you will get asked clinical questions. I still get asked clinical questions to this day.
John: Are there any particular roles that you ran into that other physicians were doing maybe that you didn't do, but that seemed pretty interesting. Well I didn't think they would hire someone for that.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So a lot of physicians go work for insurance companies reviewing claims and things like that. A lot of physicians take leadership positions in the hospital, which, course, appealed to me. There were physicians who would do similarly to what you're doing. They would focus on helping promote other physicians into nonclinical jobs. And so I think that's a really fascinating field to make too.
John: Yeah, there's a lot out there that sometimes I'm just shocked by what physicians are doing, but it's still building on their expertise, their training, their experience, and finding a happy medium with their lifestyle, you know, that there's plenty of things out there.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I think one thing is that it helps to be a good doctor first so that that gives you a steal of approval from other physicians so that they say, yes, you're not doing this clinically now, but he still, used to be a good doctor.
John: Yeah. And when you do leave someplace, leave on good terms.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Oh yeah. Don't ever burn bridges.
John: Don't burn your bridges. Yes, exactly. So, you... we didn't talk about this at the beginning, but I want to mention it because, you know, I found you by basically looking back over the SEAK, you know, brochure in a way, because I had gone to seak a nonclinical conference, you know, several times and met a lot of physicians doing things like what you're doing, any anything about the meeting you want to share with the audience? Because you've been there, I think, at least twice and presenting.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Yeah, one, it's... It brings together a good group of people who have done a variety of things after their clinical practice. So I think it helps reinforce that there, one, are a variety of roles out there that you can fill, and two, that not only can you fill those roles, but you can prosper in them and your medical background provide you an extra area of expertise that they otherwise wouldn't have.
John: Yeah, and they're not a sponsor, so I have no financial relationship to them. I'm always looking for resources, you know, and for my listeners. And when I have someone like you that's been part of that, they can explain it. So I think the people that do help and go to SEAK are, you know, have good intentions. And so, again, I'm not promoting it, but it's just another resource for people. Now, I'm sure my listeners still have more questions that I haven't even thought to ask you. Would they be able to go ahead and maybe reach out to you through LinkedIn, back in the best way?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I check my LinkedIn. LinkedIn always notifies you when you've got a message and would love to hear from anybody things I've said correctly, things I've said incorrectly, things that their experiences and things like that. So feel free to reach out.
John: OK. You don't have any books coming out.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: No, nothing to promote.
John: OK. Well, any last advice for physicians who may be been practicing for a while, but they think, well, you know, I like medicine, OK. But you know, what happens is things get old and they want to try something different. So any advice in general or about consulting as an option?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Two things. One, don't be shy about trying something new. Yes, you may not make as much money, but the rewards are there are other rewards that you can gain. And two, the thing I like about consulting is it didn't bore me. There were always something different coming up. Somebody had a new problem. And let's be honest. If you can solve it yourself, you don't hire a consultant. So we only got tough problems. And so it was good. They were challenging, made us think. And I think we helped out people, which is also a very rewarding thing.
John: A great advice. Yeah, it sounds very interesting. Little, you know, you to deal with the travel and what have you, but the problems you're helping to solve and apply your medical background at the same time and your leadership experiences. It's just like a, just a way to really use a bigger, you know, panel of skills and experience. So what are you doing these days? You're not with Deloitte anymore?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I do a little bit of consulting with Optimum Health, which is actually a sub to Deloitte. So I do some stuff with Deloitte. I've got seven grandkids, so that keeps me running, and uh... And three stepchildren and one son of my own. So between that, all keeps me busy.
John: I can relate to that. Just had three grandkids born in the same year.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Oh good, congratulations.
John: Zero to three, my wife is ecstatic.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I'm sure. So am I.
John: All right, Jonathan, this has been great. So I thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom and experience with our listeners. I think they're really going to appreciate it. So with that, I'll say goodbye.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Thank you so much. And thanks for having me on.
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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 405
Opportunities With First Class Consulting Firms Are Fantastic
Interview with Dr. Jonathan Jaffin
John: You know, I'm very familiar with consultants for my job as a CMO at a hospital. We used to have consultants in there all the time. And so it's kind of weird that after, you know, 400 episodes, I've never interviewed a consultant from a large consulting firm like we're going to do today. So I'm really happy to be able to introduce you to today's guest, Dr. Jonathan Jaffin. Welcome to the show.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Thanks, John. It's great to be here with you and sort of excited to tell my story.
John: Excellent. That's fantastic. So I've done a little intro, you know, that kind of I recorded separate from this. But why don't you start by just telling us about your background. You have a long background and in practicing and then not practicing. So tell us a little bit about what you did as a physician.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So as a physician, I did my internship and residency in general surgery and did that at Walter Reed because I was in the army, stayed in the army 31 years, so long army career. I then went and went to Honduras as a general surgeon, came back to Walter Reed as a general surgeon, went and was a group surgeon for Fifth Special Forces Group when I was a lot younger and a lot better shaped than I am now. And then went and went to Command and General Staff College with the Army. So have always done some nonclinical stuff. At Command and General Staff College, spent a year there and then went and did a fellowship in trauma surgery and critical care medicine. So went back into clinical medicine, was chief of trauma at Brooke Army Medical Center for my next job.
Then went and was the division surgeon for 4th Infantry Division up at Fort Hood, Texas. Went back, did some stuff with combat developments, took command of a hospital, a small hospital at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Then did my war college equivalent instead of going to the War College, I worked with Health and Human Services for a year. And that was supposed to be an easy year, but turned out to be 2001, 2002, if you can imagine with the anthrax attacks and everything else, we were busy. And so we had to set up the Secretary's Command Center. We spent long hours working and making ourselves helpful to the nation as a whole while we set up DHS, while we answered the anthrax attacks and everything else.
Following that, I took command at Walter Reed and that was when the war in Iraq broke out. So we got quite a few soldiers back. Fortunately, it was before all the scandals at Walter Reed, but it's still, my boss ended up getting fired as Surgeon General. And so that was not a good thing for my career progress.
John: Oh boy.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: But, then went and did the assignments for the medical corps. So I was the branch chief for the medical corps. Then did, was deputy commander and for nine months the acting commander up at the medical research command that the army runs. Then went back to the surgeon general's office where I served for the warrior transition units as chief of staff. And then for the Surgeon General, basically his CMO, they called it Director of Health Policy and Services, but it was the equivalent of a CMO, Army Surgeon General. And then, then retired from the Army.
When I retired from the Army, got a phone call from a friend of mine, and I had applied to a number of places, including CMO jobs. And he said, hey, have you ever thought about consulting? And since he outranked me, I said, no, sir, I haven't. And he said, come see me. So I did. And we talked. And he said, well, Deloitte would be very interested in somebody like you. We actually have 20 or 30 docs who work for Deloitte. And you can open doors and use your clinical expertise because they want to see somebody who's been in the trenches the same as they have.
And so that was always important was the ability to translate my experiences to what they were facing or what we were trying to teach them or help them solve whatever problems they were having. Now, the interesting thing with consulting is you have to be willing that they won't take your recommendations or that they may ask you for help with one problem. And you may see that problem is really something completely different. And so you have to be willing, one, to not have your recommendations taken, two, be willing to say, you know, I think we'd be better off solving this problem than that problem. And you have to be always looking for the next opportunity.
Now, what I liked about consulting was that I always was doing something different. So whether it was working with the military health system or their legacy EHR systems, whether it was helping a VA with coaching their directors at a medical center, whether it was helping physicians learn about clinical documentation and its importance, had a wide variety of jobs at Deloitte. And so never got bored, which was one of the things. Was I well rewarded? Yes, I would say I was well rewarded. Was it as much as a trauma surgeon makes? Probably not. But the hours were much, much better.
As a consultant, you spend a good bit of time, unless you're a government consultant, on the road. So you have to be willing to travel. So that's an important consideration in your consideration. You have to have some clinical expertise. And that's very important because people will ask you, why should I listen to you? And if all you've done is gone to medical school, they probably won't pay much attention to you, even if you're giving great advice. So you want to make sure that you've got some clinical chops under your belt, that they will respect what you've done clinically as well as what you've done beyond that. And so that's why I say it's important to be a good doctor first, then you can be a good consultant.
People ask often whether or not you need an MBA. I never got an MBA. So I didn't, obviously you don't need one. There are people who have them. There are people who have an MPH and other degrees. I have none of those. But what was most important was knowing people. Helping them, knowing that they can call me with their problems and building that relationship of trust with them either from previously, and those were some of the strongest relationships to the ones where we had to develop relationships, but we still developed the relationships because it was still important to have that.
John: Now, just to give context to the listeners here, so you were doing this full time, I believe, for over 10 years, is that correct?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Yes, I did. I did it for probably 11 years full time.
John: OK. And I'll comment too on your background, because what I've seen in a lot of these nonclinical jobs, first of all, they love someone from the military. I think you have a little bit of an advantage because they assume you have that understanding of leadership, you know, which you have a lot of, and you throw that in with the clinical, you know, if you've been a CMO or a CEO equivalent in military, I mean, you have got a lot of leadership experience. So
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Thank you.
John: Did you run into other physicians that were consultants, number one of any type? And how many, if any, were had a background in the military?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So we had a mixture. We had a number who'd been either department chiefs or CMOs of civilian hospitals. We had a number who'd been military, including ones who'd been at the surgeon general level in the military. So we had, so there were, there were some who were very, very experienced with leadership and had spent a career at, a leadership position. And obviously it's important that you have a good Rolodex because they want you to, to be able to call people and to call on people and to help generate business and your reputation lives with you, so you don't want to burn bridges as you leave the door, because those are the people who you're going to be working with again.
John: What's it like working in a team and what's the schedule like? Are you constantly doing something? Is there any downtime? Are you leading the team? Are you just a member of the team?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: It would vary. So it varies depending on what the problem is that they're trying to solve. So one team that I would be a member of was a team that was looking at revenue. So clinical documentation is an important part of revenue. So I would be the one who would educate the physicians on the clinical documentation, but I wouldn't review the charts to see which charts were necessarily had room for improvement and things like that. At the same time, I would be... I might lead a team that that had a purely clinical or a more clinical background. So the quality assurance team or something like that. So it would vary depending on the team itself and what was needed within that.
John: Now, I think Deloitte is known as maybe even a global company. Were you basically based in the US?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So I did all my work in the US, but we did have stuff who folks who worked with our English firm, our German firm or Japanese firm. South American and Central American and Mexican firms, Canadian firm. We had a physician call with physicians from all over the globe. And that was really interesting because they obviously had a very different perspective. Often they work in, you know, have to work with a socialized medicine system and things like that. And so it was very interesting just comparing notes with how their experiences were different than ours.
John: I'll get into the nitty gritty here as much as I can, but how much were you on the road traveling versus working at home remotely or on calls?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I was probably on the road two weeks a month. So about half the time I was on the road, that was more my choice. I could have stayed home more and done a more government type consulting job because obviously that was an important part as well. But probably two weeks on the road. I got my frequent flight on Mars.
John: And was it regional in the sense that would they try, if they have dozens of physicians working for them, you, would they say, well, we're going to send this crew to the East coast and we're going to use Jonathan for the West coast?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: It was more, we had areas of expertise. So I was, I had the expertise with the military. I had the expertise with clinical documentation. There were others who had Cerner expertise or Epic expertise. And so we did an Epic or a Cerner implementation, may ask them instead.
John: Okay, yeah. So really kind of fit the best team together. And I assume you worked with lot of different people over the period that you were there.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Quite. I mean, traveled all over the globe, or all over the country.
John: Yep.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I had one week where I was in Bismarck, North Dakota, Des Moines, Iowa, and Little Rock, Arkansas, all in one week. So sometimes you went to places that you otherwise might not visit.
John: Yeah. So you gotta have a lot of flexibility. You gotta be able to, you're not tied to your home for whatever reason, you're raising 17 kids or something, you know.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: No, and luckily I'm a little bit older. My family's grown and things like that so that I was able to travel as much as I did and it wouldn't, the kids didn't worry where I was.
John: Right, right. Okay, now, you kind of, I mean, you hadn't planned this transition for, you know, 10 years or anything. It sort of all happened pretty quickly. Now, if you were advising someone else, let's say they're not in the military and, who knows, maybe they're just practicing, maybe dabbled a little bit in, you know, different leadership roles at the hospital or something. Any advice that you would give in terms of if you were really thinking about this?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I think one thing that's really, really important is to get leadership roles, whether it's chief of your department, whether it's running your practice, if you're more an outpatient practice, whether it's being a CMO or things like that. First of all, you make connections, you meet people. And one thing with consulting, you're more likely to consult with somebody you trust, somebody you know, somebody that you're concerned with, than somebody de novo. So the credentials always help, but they also would rather work with somebody they know already. And so that was, I would say, meet as many people, go to meetings. If you can, get yourself involved with the leadership in various organizations, because that also will translate to connections and people knowing you and developing a reputation.
One of the things that very important is to develop personal eminence. And so you want to be somebody that people will come to with problems. You want to be an expert in something. And whether you get that from being on a society membership leadership position, whether you get that by being a leader in the hospital or things like that, or leader in your medical system, those are ways to develop expertise and eminence and leadership.
John: Now, did you get a sense of or ever meet others doing consulting for other big consulting firms? Any feedback on that?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: We would meet. And I think most people, the experience is going to be fairly similar. Lloyd's got a fairly good size health care practice. Any of the big four, I would say, does as well. But it's important that and there also are boutique firms that specialize in healthcare. And you may find that that's a better fit for you than a great big firm. I mean, we were one of thousands at Deloitte. And one thing I did enjoy doing that was unrelated to my medical profession was I helped with the Welcome to Deloitte consulting. So I helped with that class, taught that class multiple times and enjoyed that too because you'd see such a broad range of expertise and experience and you could really help people as they made that transition from say industry into consulting.
John: You know sometimes when physicians are thinking about shifting, let's say they're just burnt out or whatever, you know it's not necessarily a good reason to leave medicine but you know they may practice 20-30 years, thinking of doing something else. And one of the things that holds them back is that they feel like they're sort of abandoning patient care and abandoning patients. But do you have a recollection of like some project you worked on that really ultimately was gonna help so many patients? You know, it kind of gives you the sense, well, I am helping patients actually, but in a different way.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Absolutely. So I spent a good bit of time working with the VA leadership, especially at one of the VA medical centers. And we were able to markedly increase one, their throughput. So they were able to see more patients. Two, I think we helped them be more responsive to the needs of their community. So that not only were they seeing more patients, but they were able to help them more. And so that was one of the things that we did that I would say, yes, you're not you miss visual touch and you aren't going to do that, but you're definitely going to do things that affect a large number of patients that affect how a hospital responds to patients.
You're going to help people see that the patients are people too and need to be treated as such, not just physicians who usually get that, but sometimes administrators don't and sometimes People view the patients as a burden. And so you're able to bring your clinical experience in and say, you know, we actually were able to do this because of this patient, because this patient had this issue and brought it to our attention.
John: Now, I think it'd probably be pretty common that someone who had had a fairly long career would end up, you know, jumping into this because just the... You know, they're freed up a little bit and they're trying to do something different. Do you think some of that was really early in their career? Let's say after 10 years or so, did you meet some that had been physicians that have been with Deloitte for a long time?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Absolutely. And so often then I think it does make sense to get an MBA because you're going to be a longer time at the company. You're going to try and grow within the company. You're going to start at a lower level. And so that helps you get promoted within the company and things like that. So I think all of those play a role. Still have practiced medicine, so you still have that rapport with other doctors. And I think that's also important. And then it's important never to forget where you came from. So the clinical side of things still plays an important role. And you will get asked clinical questions. I still get asked clinical questions to this day.
John: Are there any particular roles that you ran into that other physicians were doing maybe that you didn't do, but that seemed pretty interesting. Well I didn't think they would hire someone for that.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: So a lot of physicians go work for insurance companies reviewing claims and things like that. A lot of physicians take leadership positions in the hospital, which, course, appealed to me. There were physicians who would do similarly to what you're doing. They would focus on helping promote other physicians into nonclinical jobs. And so I think that's a really fascinating field to make too.
John: Yeah, there's a lot out there that sometimes I'm just shocked by what physicians are doing, but it's still building on their expertise, their training, their experience, and finding a happy medium with their lifestyle, you know, that there's plenty of things out there.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I think one thing is that it helps to be a good doctor first so that that gives you a steal of approval from other physicians so that they say, yes, you're not doing this clinically now, but he still, used to be a good doctor.
John: Yeah. And when you do leave someplace, leave on good terms.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Oh yeah. Don't ever burn bridges.
John: Don't burn your bridges. Yes, exactly. So, you... we didn't talk about this at the beginning, but I want to mention it because, you know, I found you by basically looking back over the SEAK, you know, brochure in a way, because I had gone to seak a nonclinical conference, you know, several times and met a lot of physicians doing things like what you're doing, any anything about the meeting you want to share with the audience? Because you've been there, I think, at least twice and presenting.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Yeah, one, it's... It brings together a good group of people who have done a variety of things after their clinical practice. So I think it helps reinforce that there, one, are a variety of roles out there that you can fill, and two, that not only can you fill those roles, but you can prosper in them and your medical background provide you an extra area of expertise that they otherwise wouldn't have.
John: Yeah, and they're not a sponsor, so I have no financial relationship to them. I'm always looking for resources, you know, and for my listeners. And when I have someone like you that's been part of that, they can explain it. So I think the people that do help and go to SEAK are, you know, have good intentions. And so, again, I'm not promoting it, but it's just another resource for people. Now, I'm sure my listeners still have more questions that I haven't even thought to ask you. Would they be able to go ahead and maybe reach out to you through LinkedIn, back in the best way?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I check my LinkedIn. LinkedIn always notifies you when you've got a message and would love to hear from anybody things I've said correctly, things I've said incorrectly, things that their experiences and things like that. So feel free to reach out.
John: OK. You don't have any books coming out.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: No, nothing to promote.
John: OK. Well, any last advice for physicians who may be been practicing for a while, but they think, well, you know, I like medicine, OK. But you know, what happens is things get old and they want to try something different. So any advice in general or about consulting as an option?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Two things. One, don't be shy about trying something new. Yes, you may not make as much money, but the rewards are there are other rewards that you can gain. And two, the thing I like about consulting is it didn't bore me. There were always something different coming up. Somebody had a new problem. And let's be honest. If you can solve it yourself, you don't hire a consultant. So we only got tough problems. And so it was good. They were challenging, made us think. And I think we helped out people, which is also a very rewarding thing.
John: A great advice. Yeah, it sounds very interesting. Little, you know, you to deal with the travel and what have you, but the problems you're helping to solve and apply your medical background at the same time and your leadership experiences. It's just like a, just a way to really use a bigger, you know, panel of skills and experience. So what are you doing these days? You're not with Deloitte anymore?
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I do a little bit of consulting with Optimum Health, which is actually a sub to Deloitte. So I do some stuff with Deloitte. I've got seven grandkids, so that keeps me running, and uh... And three stepchildren and one son of my own. So between that, all keeps me busy.
John: I can relate to that. Just had three grandkids born in the same year.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Oh good, congratulations.
John: Zero to three, my wife is ecstatic.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: I'm sure. So am I.
John: All right, Jonathan, this has been great. So I thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom and experience with our listeners. I think they're really going to appreciate it. So with that, I'll say goodbye.
Dr. Jonathan Jaffin: Thank you so much. And thanks for having me on.
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