Getting Back to Basics

This week on the podcast, I decided to revisit the best resources for finding a nonclinical career. I was recently reminded that not everyone listening to this podcast has been with us since the beginning. 

It is very easy for me to go deep into a very specific topic with a guest. Occasionally, it is helpful to revisit a basic question such as “How do I begin my career search?” Today we're going back to basics. 

Let me explain what prompted me to choose today's topic.

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The Best Resources for Finding a Nonclinical Career 

I received a call from someone who had read an article about nonclinical careers. The article mentioned the Physician Nonclinical Careers Podcast. And the caller asked where she should go to find out more about the topic.

So, I put together this list of low-cost starting points to begin her research. And I thought it would be a good resource for new listeners. 

Here is the outline of the resources discussed in  today's podcast episode:

Books

[These are Amazon affiliate links]

Podcasts

  • Physician Nonclinical Careers with John Jurica
  • Doctors Unbound – David Draghinas
  • Docs Outside the Box – Nii Darko, DO
  • The Career Rx – Marjorie Stiegler, MD
  • Next Level Physicians: Thriving Outside the Box – Maiysha Clairborne, MD
  • Rx for Success with Dr. Randy Cook
  • Bootstrap MD: Physician Entrepreneurs Podcast – Mike Woo-Ming, MD
  • EntreMD – Nneka Unachukwu, MD

COACHES (Physicians) for their WEBSITE RESOURCES

FACEBOOK GROUPS

  • Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters – John Jurica and Laura McKain – 16,000 members
  • Physician Side Gigs – Nisha Mehta – 76,000 members
  • Alternative Careers for Doctors – 24,000 members
  • Remote Careers for Physicians – Jonathan Vitale – 8,000 members

Summary

One more website:

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode that you can download or read.


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Transcription - PNC Episode 195

What Are the Best Resources for Finding a Nonclinical Career?

All right, let's get right into the best resources for finding a nonclinical career. And these are the low-cost research sources. These are the things you probably should start with if you're just getting started. And then once you get into it, you can get into some other types of resources, tools, and so forth. But let's start with books, podcasts, coaches. And really, I don't think I'm going to recommend the first thing you do is get a coach. But if you go to these coaches' websites, you're going to get a lot of information there, a lot of things that you can learn that are low cost. Facebook groups are another one. I might mention some other things at the end, some courses, memberships or professional societies, if I have time.

All right, let's start with books. Shouldn't that be the first and easiest place to start? There are a number of books out there, not as many as you might think. I'm not going to go in any particular order, perhaps reverse chronological in some ways, but I'm going to start with those who have been authored by people that I personally know and have talked to.

So, I would definitely get a copy of "50 Nonclinical Careers for Physicians: Fulfilling, Meaningful, and Lucrative Alternatives to Direct Patient Care" by Sylvie Stacey. That book came out in 2020. It was really about a year old if that, and it lists literally 50 nonclinical careers and then some. There's like an extra section for those that start their own business and things like that. There's a lot of types of careers and side jobs and full-time jobs and so forth that even I have not addressed on the podcast in the last 193 episodes. So, it's really probably the most popular book currently.

I also like to mention "The Positioned Physician: Earn More, Work Smart, and Love Medicine Again" by Michael Woo-Ming. This came out originally about three years ago, but I think he's got the updated second edition in 2020. So, that's more for the entrepreneurial type of person, but he's talking about things like weight loss, clinics, med spas, things like that, as well as consulting.

Then I have to go back to "Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine" by Heidi George Moawad. Dr. Moawad is a neurologist and she had her book published in 2013 by a traditional publisher that usually publishes textbooks. And it has a lot of information that was very thoroughly researched and I would definitely recommend that.
Oh, by the way, I didn't mention so much Sylvie Stacey, who wrote the "50 Nonclinical Careers" book. Again, she's been on the podcast. I'll probably put links to those episodes with those authors in the show notes.

Sylvia Stacey's background is mostly in public health but she was the founder of Look for Zebras, which is still out there. Although I don't believe Sylvie is still affiliated with that, she is definitely the author of the book.

All right. So, three books so far. And number four, I'm going to mention "Beyond the Ward: A Doctor's Guide to Careers Outside the NHS", partly because I interviewed Dr. Paul Hercock for the podcast, and he talked about his book partly because it's something for those in the UK. So, it's a little different from the others, which are geared more towards work in the United States. It's also a really good overview of working within the pharmaceutical industry and actually medical devices, which is really more of his background. So that's another great book to pick up.

I think most of these have Kindle versions. I like to get the hard copy if I can because I often refer back to them. Anyway, those are five books, a very low-cost way to find out about dozens and dozens and dozens of nonclinical careers, what it takes. And there's a lot of inspiration in there as well.
Next, I'm going to mention some podcasts. When you're a podcaster, you get to meet a lot of other podcasters and we often interview one another. Most of us don't have a hundred percent overlap in what we're doing. So, in some of these podcasts, you may listen and go, well, that wasn't really about a nonclinical career, but it likely is going to be something related, it might be how to get into a passive income type of side job or a side gig. There might be some inspirational stories about physicians who have done unusual things.

So, besides this podcast, Physician NonClinical Careers with John Jurica, I would say here's the list that I would start with. And most of them will have different interviews with people or just solo episodes about something related to careers or side jobs or side gigs, or maybe even hobbies.
I'm kind of going back chronologically here. So, Docs Outside The Box was probably the first podcast that I heard that dealt with a similar topic to mine. Nil Darko has done a lot. He's been out there for a while. Nii Darko is a trauma surgeon. He's written a book about how to podcast and done other things, and he continues to podcast on a regular basis. And so, this is a great one. Docs Outside The Box with Nii Darko.

These are all physicians by the way. Dr. David Draghinas is an anesthesiologist. He does the Doctors Unbound Podcast. So, if you haven't listened to that, it's definitely one you'd want to check out.

Marjorie Stiegler has a podcast called The Career Rx or The Career Prescription. It's awesome. She does a great job. She focuses a lot on marketing and branding and building authority and that kind of thing, but she talks about a lot of different careers and she happens to be an expert on pharma careers as well, because I think she's still working as a medical director in a pharmaceutical company.

And then we have one of my friends, Maiysha Clairborne, who does the Next Level Physicians: Thriving Outside the Box Podcast. She's a well-known coach and she's been doing her podcasts for a year or two. And she typically talks about mindset and other issues related to doing new things in your life and in your career.

Now there's one that I'm less familiar with which is the Rx For Success with Dr. Randy Cook. He is a part of the Doctor Podcast Network, which is the network that I am part of. And I'm absolutely certain, in fact, I think I haven't set a date, but he's on my list and he knows it and he'll be coming on the podcast some time in the next eight weeks I'm thinking. So, I would definitely check that. I've listened to a lot of the episodes and I think they're really good.

Then I mentioned Mike Woo-Ming's book, and you've got BootstrapMD Physician Entrepreneurs Podcast with Mike Woo-Ming. You definitely want to listen to that. He goes into a lot of things related to entrepreneurship and side gigs and making money on the side and full time and things like that.

And then I could go on, there's a lot of other podcasters out there, but I really do have to mention Dr. Nneka Unachukwu, who's been on my podcast twice. She once came on as a guest. And then I actually asked her to interview me about the Clinician's Career Cooperative back about six months ago or so, but EntreMD podcast with Dr. Una.

So those are some that I would definitely want you to check out if you're looking for just podcasts. You can search through those. There's a lot of potential listening there, but you should be able to tell from the titles, which of those would be most appropriate for what you're doing.

Now I did mention earlier that I was going to talk about coaches. I've probably met at least two dozen coaches and have friendships and professional relationships with most of them. I think coaching is awesome and you should have no trouble finding a coach.
I guess I'll digress for one minute and say that if you want to think about getting a coach, there are many physician coaches. Some are wellness coaches, some are burnout coaches, some are lifestyle or life coaches. Some are business, some are executive coaches. And some of them do all the above or overlap.

I think most of them would be more than happy to do a short intake or a short "get to know you" type of call. Sometimes they call it a discovery call. But I think you should actually talk to a coach before you commit to signing up with them. They'll give you references usually. But again, I'm mentioning them today primarily because of their websites where they usually have a lot of good things to read or download. Most of them have a lot of things going on there that might be helpful.

For example, Heather Fork. She's got a website, she's got a podcast. I should've mentioned her above, but you definitely want to check her out and check both her podcast and her website out, which has a lot of free material. And she also sells a course on how to write your resume. And it's not a video course. I think it's all written, there might be some videos involved, but it's really comprehensive. And it talks about the words you should use and the structure and how to do a cover letter. And so, you definitely want to check out Heather Fork. She's at doctorscrossing.com.

Michelle Mudge-Riley does Physicians Helping Physicians. She's been doing live courses for the last two years. I think she's done at least four or five of them in the last year or two. And although some of those were online as opposed to face-to-face. But she does have Physicians Helping Physicians. She's got a website, she's got her courses and she might still be doing some coaching, but it's really, again because of the website and the fact that she has been working in this field for so long.

Starla Fitch is a well-known coach. She's been around a while. And I would go to her website and just see what she's got posted there. Just look her up on Google Starla Fitch. Again, Dr. Starla Fitch.

And then Maiysha Clairborne, as I mentioned earlier with her website and she's also a coach, but she has a lot of different resources available, besides her direct coaching. She has a podcast and she also has written material and blog posts and guest posts. Her website is drmaiysha.com.

So those would be at least four good websites to review.

And as you get into any of these things, you'll hear other people mentioned. I would advise you to just check them out and see if any of them sound like they would resonate with you, either their content or their actual coaching services.

Now I should mention some Facebook groups. The first one is Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook group founded by Dr. Laura McCain back about four years ago. And I am one of the admins. Laura brought me on after the site had been up for about a year. And we're at about 16,000 physician members at the moment. And there's a lot of discussion in there about nonclinical careers and many of the coaches I've mentioned. And many, many others are in there. They respond to questions.

It is possible to post things in there anonymously. The way you do that is you direct message me or Laura McCain, and we will take whatever you'd like to post and put it in there. Now we do not allow you to sell anything. So again, this is just for helping physicians.

The other big one out there is Physician Side Gigs. It's a private Facebook group that is run by Dr. Nisha Mehta. It has about 76,000 physician members. All of these groups have international members in them. Although they vary in the amount that is mostly US-based, they're open to pretty much everyone who qualifies to be a member. You have to be very careful. You can't put anything in the Physician Side Gigs without the permission of the moderators in there as far as any kind of sales at all.

There's another one that I haven't spent much time in. I believe I'm a member of Alternative Careers for Doctors. It has 24,000 members. So again, it's a pretty active group that has been out there a few years. You might check that out.

And then there's Remote Careers for Physicians. Jonathan Vitale has started that one. It's got over 8,000 members already, and it's only been around about a year or so. That one focuses a little bit more on remote careers. And there are other Facebook groups where they do focus on a specific niche career. Let's say something like that.

There are some groups on LinkedIn. Although they don't really seem to be all that active. I do publish notices of my podcast episodes on LinkedIn and some of those groups, but the amount of engagement is limited. There is some engagement, but it's not as robust and as brisk as in the Facebook groups.

I'm getting near the end now and I'll say there's some other things. There are courses out there. There are memberships out there that you can join. I don't know that any would be a starting point. Forums. The Clinician Career Cooperative has been kind of in a holding pattern, but we're going to be pushing that and opening that back up and promoting that in the very near future.

But I would say certain professional societies can be very, very helpful to get started. So, this is just off the top of my head. Of course, I'm very fond of the American Association for Physician Leadership. The AAPL. I've been a member since the 90s. I'm on one of the sub-committees, for the certified physician executive designation. But it's a group of physicians for physicians by physicians that talk mostly about leadership and management. And of course, that applies to a lot of different industries. So, it's a place where you can get a lot of good information. The membership is very inexpensive. The courses tend to be a little on the expensive side, but really nothing out of bounds in terms of the level of the cost compared to other professional societies, I would say.

There are other groups like the AMWA - American Medical Writers Association. It's not just physicians, but there's a lot of content in there for physicians if you're looking to become a medical writer. There are associations for medical directors and physician advisors I've talked about in the past. I can't think of any other particular professional societies that I would mention at this point. Heidi Moawad, who wrote the book that I mentioned at the beginning, has a site called nonclinicaldoctors.com. It has jobs on it, and it has articles and I think even some videos.

So, I think those are the main resources that I would start with if I were starting out right now. There is a lot to look at, a lot to listen to in that list. And so, I guess I don't want to totally overwhelm you today. If I've missed anything glaring, I'm sorry. I know I have some associates and colleagues that probably do some awesome stuff that I failed to mention today. So, feel free to drop me a note or an email or something if I've missed somebody and I'll talk about it next time.

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career.