The Best Courses and Memberships for More Satisfied Physicians

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 421

The Best Courses and Memberships for More Satisfied Physicians

John: Now, I started this podcast over eight years ago in part because I was curious about the type of careers, side hustles, and income diversification strategies that other doctors were pursuing as their traditional clinical careers became more frustrating and unfulfilling. I was already aware of several of them because I personally tried out several part-time options and eventually two full-time ones if you include my participation and investment in a new urgent care business in the northern Chicago suburbs.

I was medical director for different things part-time, I worked as a physician advisor, I became a CMO, and then I also became an investor and a full-time medical director for an urgent care network, started with one and built up to four so far.

I've done a lot of things myself, but I was really surprised when I started the podcast and started looking at some potential guests just at the diversity of potential options physicians chose to pursue. In some cases, they were positions that they invented and actually had never even existed.

One of the things that I noticed early on was that there were very few resources available to teach physicians to prepare for and pursue such endeavors, such as things like online courses, webinars, live and remote summits, memberships, mastermind groups, and social media interest groups, which had developed to inform and teach others in other areas. I noticed that. When I was trying to start my podcast, I noticed while there was a course on how to start a podcast, but there's all kinds of resources for things such as creating a small business, marketing, how to do a franchise, health and fitness topics, relationships, and other interests.

But at the time, there wasn't really much out there for physicians. And there was some lifestyle, burnout, and career coaching for physicians, however, and it had taken off pretty well. There weren't dozens and dozens of coaches early on, eight to 10 years ago. But I did start to meet those coaches over time. And some of them included, like, these are all physician coaches, Dike Drummond , Heather Fork, Mike Woo-Ming, Maiysha Clairborne, Marjorie Stiegler, and Michelle Mudge-Riley. Some of whom were putting together things other than just direct coaching. Michelle Mudge-Reilly was doing an annual meeting for a while. Now, she doesn't do that anymore. But this was starting up.

I remember in talking with some of my coaching colleagues and speaking to them about the fact that there were very few well-developed online courses or mentorship programs by physician experts on pursuing a nonclinical or unconventional career or a side hustle or real estate investing other forms of income diversification. I guess the White Coat Investor was doing some of that at the time. And we thought, wow, wouldn't it be great to develop some of them ourselves and then promote each other's courses and memberships to our audiences?

We could all benefit because we had audiences and clients who were focusing on different things. And some coaches are specialists in one thing and other coaches are specialists in other things. Well, we've kind of gotten to that point and maybe then some.

There are now many educational programs from live in-person conferences to multi-day live courses to recorded webinars with live Q&A sessions to every other different kind of method of communicating and sharing these things with physicians. And they're mostly geared for overcoming burnout, diversifying your income, learning new skills, and pursuing any specific career that can leverage your clinical education and training, but are either unconventional or nonclinical completely like those in pharma and in insurance companies and so forth. So what I want to do today is describe some of the physician mentors and trainers who have created excellent programs.

I'm really focusing on the programs themselves and not so much on mentors, trainers, and coaches who developed them, but I wanted to just give you this laundry list of not everyone, of course, but some of those that are really strong. They've been recurrent over time. They've been out there for more than, let's say, even one, two, three years.

Some of them have been out there for five to 10 years and they always keep getting better. And so I think these are excellent programs to help you take your career and income diversification to the next level. Oh, by the way, why do I focus on income diversification? Because one of the things we find in medicine is that sometimes we have to leave. And I've had several guests talk about that, whether forced out or for whatever reason they have this great job and then their employer gets bought out by a large system and then they can't work there. And so the income diversification serves the purpose of taking the pressure off medicine as being the only option for making money.

And the other is it can be something where you can just leave medicine completely if you get to the point where you need to do that. Now, the people that I'm going to mention today, the authors, creators, consultants, and coaches, I've known all of them for many years and I have personally completed some of the courses we're talking about today. And I have had podcast listeners participate in most of them, if not all of them.

And like most everything a physician attempts to do, these programs are really of high quality and the content is extremely useful and practical. And what I'm sharing today the physicians have used these methods for a long time and then have taken what they've learned and honed it into some kind of a course or a membership. And in fact, I've had yet to hear any negative feedback from a podcast listener or an email subscriber of mine who has purchased the products we'll be discussing today.

And I've had many provide me very positive feedback in these programs. And for the most part, they are demonstrated to be successful for the people that utilize them to get them to where they want to go. And in a way that's much easier and quicker than what they could do on their own by searching the internet and reading books and just trial and error.

During today's discussion, I'm going to be mentioning a lot of links to go to check out these programs. So I'd say have a pen and paper ready to write these down. However, if you can't take notes, of course, I'll list all of these in the show notes and in the transcript of today's episode. So you have that option, but you can save some time by just writing down as we go the ones that are interesting to you.

Now, as I go through these, I'll let you know which of them I'm an affiliate promoter of, which means that if you use my link to purchase the course or membership, I receive a small fee for promoting it to you. As usual, the cost of the item is the same whether you buy it through my link or someone else's link, including the creators, the price is exactly the same.

It's just that creators do this so that they can reach a bigger audience. You know, probably you'll hear about some of these courses from me today and at other times that you would never have heard directly from the course creator themselves. So let's see, let's get started.

One of the most consistent of the long-term physician coaches that I'm aware of is Dr. Dike Drummond of TheHappyMD. If you're burned out or looking for help to change your attitude, develop resilience, improve your work-life balance, or be a better leader, he has excellent advice to offer and he's been doing it consistently, I'm sure for over 10 years. And of the coaches I've talked to, I believe he has the highest percentage of clients who remain in traditional practice once they've gone through his program rather than shift to an unconventional or nonclinical career.

I think some of his clients do that, but most of them are trying to stay in medicine and so they come up with new ways of thinking and organizing and leading that enables them to stay in more or less the traditional medicine situation than some of the others that we're going to talk about today. And he's doing a lot more with groups and he creates his own group meetings remote and in person. And he also facilitates meetings and runs meetings and teaching at other facilities.

And he literally has reached over 40,000 physician trainees over the years that he's been doing this. So I've never had a course or something that I've promoted for him. I just know that he's one of the original coaches out there.

He's been very successful. He has a lot to offer. And so you can find him at thehappymd.com. Many of you may already be familiar with him. And if you're trying to stay in medicine, but not be so burned out and frustrated, you might check him out. He's my first recommendation. And again, this is not something that I'm promoting personally, other than as a colleague.

Now, Dr. Heather Fork is another iconic physician coach who has joined us on the podcast several times. And besides her one-on-one coaching, she has built two excellent courses that teach very important skills for physicians looking for a new job, particularly a nonclinical one. And I have been promoting her products and services for years and years. I am an affiliate sponsor for her as well.

The first one is the Carpe Diem resume kit for converting your CV to a resume designed for a nonclinical position. See, a lot of us have CVs and they're usually long and they don't really accomplish what a resume is intended to accomplish when you're applying for a job at pharma or hospital executive leadership or an insurance company or something like that. So you need to convert that CV to a resume. And so she has that Carpe Diem resume kit, which does that. It's excellent. I've looked through it in detail.

The second resource, and I was just promoting this last week, actually, is the LinkedIn for Physicians course to help you set up your profile, grow your following and network for success and find a job using LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a very, very valuable resource that many physicians overlook when they're looking for, again, diversification of their income, a different part-time job, a completely new nonclinical job and so forth. And this LinkedIn for Physicians that Heather has put together is fantastic and it keeps getting better as she adds new parts to it as LinkedIn does change over time and she tends to keep that up to date.

I'm an affiliate promoter for both of these products. You can learn more about her resume kit at nonclinicalphysicians.com/resumekit. It's all one word, R-E-S-U-M-E-K-I-T, nonclinicalphysicians.com/resumekit, and the LinkedIn course at nonclinicalphysicians.com/linkedIncourse, also one word, LinkedIncourse. If those don't work for some reason, you can just go directly to doctorscrossing.com/products, doctorscrossing.com/products. So that's a good start for an actual concrete set of courses. Although the resume kit's really something you work through on paper rather than as a video.

Now, the next guest expert whose product I promoted is Dr. Gretchen Green and her Expert Witness Startup School. Shorten that to EWSS, Expert Witness Startup School. It's been around for years and it's always updated with new information and new resources.

And I think I first promoted this in 2020. So it's been around a long time and I have promoted it several times. It comes out once or twice a year at least. I think twice a year might be the most. And it comes in cohorts and you work with people in your same cohort. Several of my listeners have enrolled.

The course walks you through all the steps you need to follow to quickly develop your own expert witness consulting business and thereby diversifying your income. Now, because the revenue generated is so lucrative, it is then possible to free up time spent doing clinical or other work to spend time with family or to pursue other interests. So it's a classic and it's very well done.

And every year it gets a little bit longer with new resources. I believe she even has maybe a network of attorneys that are looking for people to do this kind of work for them. And now the EWSS happens to be open for enrollment right now as I'm releasing this episode on September 9th of 2025.

If you're interested in this at all, you better jump on it. You can learn more about it by going to nonclinicalphysicians.com/ewcourse. And as usual, if you join using my link, I receive an affiliate payment that does not affect the price to you. And the enrollment for this cohort closes on September 15th. Yeah, six days after the release of this episode at midnight. So check it out right away if you're considering this as a side hustle. Now she'll probably again do this in six months from now, or maybe a little sooner than that.

I'm not sure. But if you're interested in this, and this is again, really a great side hustle that can ultimately become a source of income as you slow down your clinical activities. Now I want to shift gears with the type of side we're talking about.

And it's one that's very popular with physicians and that's real estate. It can be pursued part time, which is nice. And it can generate income while building assets with increasing value over time.

And eventually it can replace all of your clinical income well into retirement, and then ultimately leave a legacy for your family. It just so happens that a well-known real estate course that I'm promoting this month is also starting up right now. That's Drs. Leti Alto's and Kenji Asakuro's Zero to Freedom. It provides comprehensive course materials, live coaching sessions, Q&A opportunities, and a supportive community on Facebook to teach you how to find, purchase, and manage cash flowing real estate.

This course has also been expanded and improved over the past five years, and it will jumpstart your real estate side hustle if you choose to pursue it. I'm not going to go into all the details today, but you can learn all about the course by going to nonclinicalphysicians.com/rentals.

Now, as noted earlier, this episode is being released on Tuesday, September 9th, but the Zero to Freedom: Cash Flowing Rental Mastery launch doesn't actually happen until Friday, September 12th. So if you're listening on the first or second day, this is not available right now, but just wait a day or two. And after the 12th, you can go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/rentals and begin your real estate journey if you haven't already.

Now, I have looked at different real estate options over the years, and I've had a few guests doing this. I've never really bid on any of them in terms of pursuing any real estate as an income source. My wife and I do own an office building because we bought it for her business, and now she sold her business, but we still own the building, so we get a little bit of income from the rent to the new owner of her business.

But with the slowing down, nearing retirement, and so forth, I've been really interested in getting involved in some type of real estate. And there is another type of real estate play that is very popular with physicians who know about it as residential assisted living. And this term is used basically for home-like, generally 16-bed or smaller facilities designed to meet the need for senior care.

And I had a guest on in July of 2025, earlier this year, Dr. Alex Schloe, who had two episodes to kind of go through all this, and he explained the ins and outs of residential assisted living, or RAL, investing over two episodes, like I said. And it's kind of a unique opportunity because it combines the benefit of real estate plus running a small business in the facility that you own that generates a pretty exceptional return on investment. Meaning, you're getting paid from the residents of the facility, and you get a fair amount of cashflow from just that part.

And then if you own the building, then that business leases the building from the real estate owner, which in that case is yourself. And so it generates income in two ways, and so the cashflow is usually very good. And it's been said that really you can have one 16-unit residential assisted living facility, and that's enough to basically replace most of your income as a physician, and maybe even all of it, depending on how sophisticated and large.

I don't mean more than 16 beds, but the nature of the facility that you own. So it's really something that's gotten me interested, and with my wife selling her business, we had a little extra cash, and I'll tell you what we did with that in a minute. But this happens to be one of the fastest growing real estate plays that is not likely to meet the demand needed for it for at least 20 years, because these are baby boomers.

And at the same time, this kind of aligns very well with a physician's passion and expertise in caring for seniors. So physicians, when I joined the RAL Room, of course, it's run by at least one physician, which I'll mention the RAL Room in a minute, and two other partners, but a lot of the members of this RAL Room are physicians looking to get into investments in residential assisted living. So I joined this thing called the RAL Room Mastermind, which was mentioned by Dr. Alex Schloe in those July episodes. It's a membership run by him and two partners, and it has everything really that I think I need to learn about residential real estate investing, including live and recorded lectures, webinars, Q&A sessions, small group masterminds.

I had my first meeting with a group of five or six in that mini mastermind pod, they call it. And there's also investment opportunities with other active RAL members in the Rail Room membership, which is really called the RAL Room Mastermind.

Anyway, I've consumed already 30 plus hours of content on the site. And the other thing that came out of it was my wife and I made a $100,000 investment in a syndication put together for the development of two brand new 16 bed rail facilities near Houston, Texas. And it all came from an opportunity that we identified through that RAL Room Mastermind.

I'm in it, I paid the full price to join it. And I'd encourage you to check it out and join me in the RAL Room if this interests you. If real estate investment is something that interests you, if you want to do the cash flowing method, you could use the previous course that I talked about from Leti and her husband. Or if you think residential assisted living is something you want to learn about, go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/ralroom. And that'll be a link that'll bring you into a website to check it out. I've never shared that link before, but I do believe I get a small stipend if you use it to join the Ral Room Mastermind. That's another affiliate type of link.

Those are the main things I wanted to talk about today. Those are out there, they're ongoing, they're excellent. I do want to mention three more resources developed by colleagues that I mentioned earlier. Ones by Dr. Mike Woo-Ming and Dr. Emma Nichols. Oh, I didn't mention her earlier, but let me go through these last three very briefly. But because they're there, I'm not an affiliate, I believe in them, they're awesome. I referred many of my listeners and followers to these opportunities.

The first is the number one doctor directory for coaches, consultants, and mentors called Physician Coaches created by Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. He does a ton of different things, but this is just one that you can take advantage of. It can be very useful. You can find a coach there if you need one, or if you're doing coaching and want to expand it, you can add yourself to his list.

Again, if you're a coach serving physicians, it can be found at physiciancoaches.com. Next, medical writing is a big career for physicians. And if you're interested in quickly becoming a medical writer and finding places to work, you should check out a couple of resources from Dr. Emma Nichols. I've interviewed her two or three times. And the first of her two resources is her well-known six-week course.

Now that was a paid course in the past, but now it's offered as a free preview. And the website is 6weekcourse.com. And you basically get everything that she always used to include with her course for free. But if you're serious about becoming a paid medical writer, maybe after going through the course and seeing what it takes and how easy or difficult it might be, you'll have the option to upgrade to a paid version.

And the thing about that that's so cool is it jumpstarts your entry into freelance medical writing by providing an access to six feedback tests. So these are the kind of tests that sometimes employers will use or Emma used in the past to qualify you to be a medical writer.

There's certain things you need to know how to do for certain reasons, like if you're doing technical writing. Anyway, you can access the six feedback tests once you've finished the free preview for a price. That's kind of step two if you want to do that.

But by completing those and doing the six feedback tests, you'll be eligible for a video call with Dr. Nichols, which in and of itself is helpful, and to put your name in for paid work from Nascent Medical, her company that does hire medical writers. And a lot of her medical writers have been trained through her six-week course in the past.

Again, two steps there. You've got the free level. If you're super serious, you might pay the extra for the six feedback tests, get the response to those feedback tests, have a consult with Dr. Nichols, and then potentially have your name put in for paid work as a medical writer from her company, applying the things you've learned in the free course.

And then before I go, I would definitely have to mention my sponsor, the pre-trial, pre-litigation medical legal consulting coaching program. In that, Dr. Armin Feldman teaches you to start your own business doing non-expert witness medical legal consulting, which can be found at arminfeldman.com. So you hear about that every couple of weeks because that's one of my podcast sponsors, but I thought, well, for completeness, I'll put it in today's episode.

Those are the best courses, mentoring and membership programs that I'm aware of. If you want to diversify your income or shift completely to a nonclinical unconventional career, there should be something there to help you to do that. You can also, of course, check out the Nonclinical Career Academy for even more education and training by going to nonclinicalcareeracademy.com.