Exploit These Free and Low-Cost Tools – Episode 322

In today's episode, John dives into a treasure trove of the best first resources for physicians to access when seeking to transition into a nonclinical career.

He covers a range of tools and guidance. They range from a comprehensive website to a nudge in the right direction, this episode is a starting point for your nonclinical career journey.

Our Episode Sponsor

This week's episode sponsor is the From Here to There: Leveraging Virtual Medicine Program from Sandrow Consulting.

Are you ready to say goodbye to burnout, take control of your schedule, increase your earnings, and enjoy more quality time with your family? You’re probably wondering how to do that without getting a new certification or learning a whole new set of nonclinical skills.

Here's the answer: The quickest way to achieve more freedom and joy is to leverage virtual medicine.

Dr. Cherisa Sandrow and I discussed this in Podcast Episode 266. Cherisa and her team are now preparing to relaunch their comprehensive program for building and running your own telehealth business.

If you want to learn the tools and skills you need to live life on your own terms – then you should check it out today. After completing the 10-week program, you’ll be ready to take your career to the next level.

The program starts soon, and there are a limited number of openings. To help you get a glimpse into the program, Sandrow Consulting is offering a series of FREE Webinars. Go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/freedom to sign up and learn why telehealth is the quickest way to begin your career journey.

Our Show Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Other Best First Resources to Help You

In this session, John provides an overview of fundamental resources for clinicians exploring nonclinical careers. He starts with books that address the process of career change head-on:

1. Pivot by Jenny Blake
2. Do You Feel Like You Wasted All That Training? by Michael McLaughlin
3. Physicians' Pathways to Non-Traditional Careers and Leadership Opportunities, edited by Richard D. Urman and Jesse M. Ehrenfeld
4. 50 Nonclinical Careers for Physicians, by Dr. Sylvie Stacy

John recommends several podcasts and online communities. They provide practical advice, real-life career change stories, and platforms for networking:

1. Docs Outside the Box Podcast with Dr. Nii Darko
2. Career Rx Podcast with Dr. Marjorie Stiegler
3. Doctors Changing Medicine Podcast with Dr. Nneka Unachkwu
4. BootstrapMD – Physician Entrepreneurs Podcast with Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
5. Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook Group
6. Physician Side Gigs Facebook Group
7. Alternative Careers for Doctors Facebook Group
8. Remote Careers for Physicians Facebook Group

In addition to these resources, John mentions SEAK, an organization dedicated to teaching physicians about nonclinical careers. SEAK offers online courses, books, and an annual conference. The annual conference held in Chicago in October serves as a comprehensive resource for career changers, featuring informative lectures and face-to-face access to dozens of expert mentors.

Other Online Resources

John also touches on the emerging trend of physician coaching, recommending the website physiciancoaches.com, which provides a directory of physician coaches in various specialties.

There are also useful websites such as Doctors Crossing, by Dr. Heather Fork, and Dr. Heidi Moawad's website Non Clinical Doctors.

Lastly, John reminds us of online summits like the one offered by NewScript in April called the Nonclinical Career Summit. The annual Summit provides free live access to 12 lectures over 3 evenings at no cost. Afterward, the recordings are available for lifetime access for a small fee. The 2023 lectures are still available at the NewScript Nonclinical Career Summit website.

Summary

John explores an array of resources for physicians navigating their transition into nonclinical and nontraditional careers. These resources encompass everything from in-depth conferences to online summits and physician coaching services. It's a comprehensive guide for those embarking on their journey to nontraditional medical careers.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode. 

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Pivot by Jenny Blake (Amazon affiliate link)
• Do You Feel Like You Wasted All That Training? by Michael McLaughlin (Amazon affiliate link)
• Physicians' Pathways to Non-Traditional Careers and Leadership Opportunities, edited by Richard D. Urman and Jesse M. Ehrenfeld (Amazon affiliate link)
• 50 Nonclinical Careers for Physicians, by Dr. Sylvie Stacy (Amazon affiliate link)
• Nonclinical Physicians Website
• Physician Coaching Directory
• Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters
• Physician Side Gigs
• Doctors Crossing by Heather Fork
• Non Clinical Doctors by Dr. Heidi Moawad
• From Here to There: Leveraging Virtual Medicine Telehealth Program by Sandrow Consulting
• NewScript Nonclinical Career Summit website
• NewScr!pt

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 322

Best First Resources to Use Before You Start Your Nonclinical Career Journey

John: This is the fourth session. I'm trying to be real consistent and do these every week at the same time. I was thinking about what I would talk about today if we didn't have a lot of questions. In the future, I'll try to come prepared with questions from those that are being sent by email or posted in NewScript. Otherwise, we can take questions during the session.

But today what I want to talk about is just an overview of some of the basic resources for clinicians who are looking to change careers. I'm going to focus on careers today. In NewScript, of course, we talk about a lot of different things from burnout to self-limiting beliefs, to starting a small business, to finding something else to do part-time. Today, I'm just going to look at some resources that are focused mainly for physicians that are applicable to those early in the process of career change.

I'm going back a few years because I've done some podcasts and I've written some blog posts on some of these issues. And the resources that I generally talk about are books and maybe courses. I don't think I'm going to touch on any courses today. Mostly low cost resources, podcasts that have been out there for a while, and other resources that I've come across.

I'm just going to get started with the books. Now, oddly enough, the first resource I'm going to talk about is not really geared to specifically clinicians or even physicians. But it's a book called "Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One." It's a book by Jenny Blake. It's been out for a few years. She might even have a second edition out. I'm not sure. I don't think so.

But I found that the model that she walks through for finding and pursuing your first major job when you've been, let's say, in a profession for a while, it's a really good model. It addresses some of the mindset issues. It talks about how to plant yourself first and doing assessment, things like your interest, your passions, and also something that you're good at, which in our case, most of the members in NewScript are good at very, very many things. But I do recommend that.

And by the way, I'm going to go through a lot of these resources today. I'm not going to type these in the chat as we go. But what I'll do is I'll put everything that I mentioned today just on a one page resource, and I'll send it basically to everybody. I'll just go into NewScript and I'll do a post out to everybody. And attached with that post will be this list of resources that I talk about today.

I like that book. Most of the books I'm going to talk about, I have copies of here to show you. And the video that we're doing today will of course be recorded and there'll be a replay. So you can look at the video, but I don't have all the books to show you because some of them, I have an only electronic version of it. That's the first one I want to mention.

The second one is another one that's been out a long time. And again, I can show you this one. I think it was the first one that I ever purchased and read by Michael McLaughlin. It's called "Do You Feel Like You Wasted All That Training? Questions From Doctors Considering a Career Change." It's actually written in a format of questions and answers. It's literally about 150 pages of questions and answers. Everything from the results of considering a career change, the emotional, the feelings that can engender in you and then where to look for options and so forth. It's a little bit dated, but again, I'll put that in the list, but it's a good one.

If you look up the name of the authors on these, you'll find these books. For the first one, if you look up Jenny Blake, you'll be able to find her book. They're all on Amazon. If you look up Michael McLaughlin, you'll find his book. So, that's a good one. That's a Q&A and that's a general one for physicians. That's why it's really good. It addresses not doing a specific career. He has a LinkedIn group, I believe. I think it's called PNR. Anyway, if you look up in LinkedIn, Nonclinical Careers, you'll come up with his LinkedIn group. It's been there for a while and there's a little bit of activity there.

Then another one, it's been around a long time, and it's also a little different in the sense that it's a little more of an academic approach, but with specific jobs. And they're split up in a more, like a university would kind of look at career transition for physicians and other clinicians. And it's called "Physicians' Pathways to Non-Traditional Careers and Leadership Opportunities." I think this one is a little less practical but it's still useful and it can give you some good ideas. I'll put that on the list.

Now, the other one that I don't have a physical copy of, but I've read it online. It's like an Amazon version of the book called "Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine", and it's by Heidi Moawad. If you look up Heidi Moawad, she's the one that went from clinical to a nonclinical job over a decade ago, maybe two decades. And she is a neurologist. She's one of the early people I talked to about going into a utilization management or case management type position. And so, again, if you look up her name, you'll find that she talks about specific careers. She did a lot of personal research. The book I mentioned before, the more academic one actually has multiple authors because each chapter's by somebody different. But Heidi Moawad, again, she's kind of seen as an icon. She also has a website called Nonclinical Doctors. But if you look up Heidi Moawad on Amazon, you'll find her book. It has some really good insights and a list of types of careers, which you can also find on her website.

And then kind of the more recent one that I consider the Bible of nonclinical careers now is the one by Sylvie Stacy, "50 Nonclinical Careers for Physicians." This is about as complete as you're going to get that has a list of the most common nonclinical careers. And she covers some areas that many of us don't touch on very often like jobs and government as a whole section on jobs and government, and a section on public health, which includes the CDC level and NIH and other government jobs. And then the state public health, and then the local county public health and everything in between.

But she has it broken down by insurance companies, hospitals and health systems, consulting jobs, medical writing, marketing and advertising. She even addresses some of the radio personalities, TV personalities. Everything is sort of described in there, some estimates of what the income would be, which are probably not that accurate just because even within a year or two these things get dated.

But it's definitely one that if you're looking for a simple low cost resource. You don't have to read the whole book, you just look in those sections that are pertinent. And the thing about this is, it was published by the American Association for Physician Leadership. You can get it there or I think you can get it on Amazon as well.

Sylvie Stacy used to run the Look for Zebras website, which she has since sold that had a lot of the same information, which has now been compiled into this book, which was published at least three or four years ago now.

I usually promote or mention a couple of other books of friends of mine, colleagues, who are actually both podcasters as well, and are well-known in the nonclinical career arena. One is called "The Positioned Physician." I have a copy, but I don't have it handy. It's by Michael Woo-Ming. You might know him better as again, a podcaster. And if you look up "The Positioned Physician", you'll see that he has a second edition out.

And it's really more about setting up either a cash only medical company, or clinic, and also starting a consulting or coaching business. And it goes through there and it talks about some of the practical things from the standpoint of business, but also some of the mental hoops to jump through before you do something like that. And as I said, he updated it just a couple years ago. The newest edition is out and it's not expensive.

The other one is by Dr. Andrew Wilner called "The Locum Life." And it's specifically for those who are looking to go into locum tenens work as an alternative to typical clinical work. Now, obviously it is clinical, just as Mike Woo-Ming's book talks about opening an aesthetic or weight loss clinic that's also clinical. But obviously, they're clinical in a way that basically avoids the issue of dealing with an office, dealing with billing, dealing with working for a large corporate structure.

As a locums doctor, you technically may often do that, but you're kind of at arm's length. You don't get involved in the politics. You usually get paid more because they're struggling to fill those slots and it's usually obviously a temporary position. That's another book that I would recommend.

Now the other thing I want to talk about is some other resources that are not books. Here are some of the podcasts that I would recommend you consider besides watching or listening to my podcast. Docs Outside the Box is interesting. It's not always about careers, but there's a lot about careers in there. And it started, oh, good six or seven years ago. A lot of episodes where he is interviewing people doing interesting things with their careers.

The other would be the Career Rx with Marjorie Stiegler. That is a really good one. Lot of advice and a lot about pharma because that's the industry that Marjorie is now working in. She is an anesthesiologist, but she's now working mostly in pharma and then producing the podcast. And she has several courses, which can be of benefit as well.

The other one I would mention is EntreMD by Nneka Unachukwu. She's been on my podcast two or three times. She has maybe more things, but if you look up Dr. Una, you'll find everything that she does. And she has some courses and she focuses more on enhancing your income of your practice, improving your practice, and then also nonclinical non-practice based businesses and so forth. She's really dedicated to helping physicians and other clinicians thrive and overcome burnout by just doing something that they love. And then I would also mention the podcast BootstrapMD, which is Mike Woo-Ming's podcast.

Sometimes when I'm talking about this topic, I'll mention coaches. There are a lot of coaches out there now, a lot of physician coaches who coach physicians. It's very popular, but it's in high demand as well. And I think that the coaches that I know the best are really either full or not really doing one-on-one coaching anymore because they just have converted to doing group coaching and courses and things. Because it's an easier way to leverage that instead of going one by one. But there are many individual physician coaches.

And there is a company or an online resource run by Mike Woo-Ming called physiciancoaches.com, which has about 300 or 400 physician coaches in there doing different types of coaching. If you want to look somewhere where you can go through and see what type of coaching they do, what their background is, what their experience is, for most of the coaches, there's that kind of information. I would suggest that.

There are Facebook groups, of course, that are dedicated to this. And there's actually probably a lot more now than what I'm fully aware of, but I know that Laura McCain's group, Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters, PNC Hunters. Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters. I used to be an admin for her for that group until a couple of years ago. I know that it has over 20,000 members. It's fairly active, which is nice because in the smaller groups sometimes there aren't any posts for quite a while. Between herself and the people in there, they're always asking questions. And then there's a lot of coaches that will jump into that. So, if you're not in Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook group, I suggest you consider joining it.

You can always go to Facebook and use some kind of a pseudonym. You don't have to put in information that will expose your identity to at least the members that are in the group. Now at the Facebook level, you might have to put information in there so that they'll have it, but at least it won't be out to the public. There are many people in that group that have strange kind of pseudonyms. So, that's one way to get around that issue. But there's a lot of information there. And Laura also posts things in there as files that you can access.

Nisha Mehta has Physician Side Gigs, which has been around a long time, and it's probably got close to 100,000 members. It's a very diverse group. I think it seems to be more dedicated to women, but either way it doesn't really matter. There's all that information there. So you can check that out. There's another group called Alternative Careers for Doctors. There's one by Jonathan Vitale called Remote Careers for Physicians. As its name implies, he and his members, which I don't know, I think it's well over 10,000 members now talk about mostly remote careers, but that could be a lot of things. I think the vast majority in that group are dedicated to utilization management type, insurance jobs for insurance companies, payers of various sorts. But it's a good one. It's pretty active and a lot of ideas come out of that.

There's a lot of resources on Heather Fork's website, Doctors Crossing. A lot of freebies that are very useful. Lists of let's say UM companies. I think that's it as far as the basics. So you've got your podcasts, you've got your books, you've got your websites of the coaches that I mentioned today.

Those are the main basic resources for those that are just getting started that need something to get them going. Of course, when you're in NewScript, you can post a question about anything and somebody will generally answer. And so, I guess that's all I wanted to talk about today.

All right, I see there's a question here about SEEK. It's very apropos, very timely, and I think the others who listened to the replay may benefit from that. In fact, it was funny because I had interviewed Dr. Savi Chadha, who's an MSL, and his posts, his interview is going to be posted this coming Tuesday. And he mentioned at some point in that interview that he was a faculty for SEEK, and basically he serves as a mentor at SEEK.

SEEK is an organization that is actually dedicated to teaching mostly physicians about nonclinical careers. And it kind of dates back to the very early days, way before I started my podcast. And in fact I used one of the SEEK meetings as a way to identify guests for the podcast, because what SEEK does is they produce online, and it used to be on CDs and tapes, booklets and so forth, but they produce these courses for physicians in particular who are looking to switch to a nonclinical job.

I don't know the backstory completely, but it is run by two or three partners, father and son, and another partner. They're all attorneys. And I think they got into it because they were getting involved in teaching physicians how to become expert witnesses, which was like a really awesome part-time job. Most people that are expert witnesses, of course, don't quit practice because usually they can't work as expert witnesses after that. There's a few exceptions to that.

Anyway, then they started doing courses on becoming an expert witness, and some of those are really awesome. They also created a large directory of expert witnesses that you can pay to be in, and they will send you business because other attorneys buy that manual.

But one of the major parts of their whole enterprise is this annual SEEK meeting, which is every October in the Chicago area. For people that know Chicago, it's in Rosemont at one of the big conference centers. It's not downtown Chicago, but it's actually relatively close to O'Hare Airport for those that fly in. But I live close enough that I can drive to it.

Anyway, the way it is structured, the main part is two days, and you have a big plenary session at the beginning. Everybody's in the room. There's some big name so to speak who speaks on a topic about looking for a new nonclinical career. I went there as a participant, not as a mentor or a presenter, but I've been there twice as a participant, mainly to meet the people that were doing the presentations. And the presentations are very good. They're like 40 minutes each, 40 minutes to an hour. And you have back-to-back lectures going on.

You've probably gotten the same flyer that I have, and I think they do one session at a time, so you don't have to choose. There might be some concurrent sessions going on, but while they're doing the sessions, like I said, it is over two days. They'll cover a good 20 topics more or less in pretty good detail.

You'll have some talking about how to go into consulting, how to become a UM physician advisor for an insurance company or a medical director, how to do expert witness work, what kind of jobs are there in pharma, and so on and so forth. So, it's actually a good resource. And you get a booklet with the slides from everybody, and usually each person's going to give you some resources like where to find the job.

It's not necessarily for someone who has a particular job in mind, because you'll probably only have one or two hours devoted to that. Let's say you want to go into pharma. But if you're still at the beginning and you're really trying to sort through what your options might be, and they'll oftentimes get into the salaries and they'll get into how would you apply for this job? How would you prepare for the job, and so forth? So, it's a really good intro.

It is going to be held in October and it might be worth it. You come away with a lot of information. And the other thing that I should mention before I let you go is that during the conference they have mentors. There's at least 40 mentors. That means people like Laura McCain and I don't know if Heather Fork still does it, but she used to do it. Michelle Reilly used to do it. And Tom Davis, my partner in NewScript, he used to do it. I don't think he's going this year.

There's a lot of pretty big names, people that have written books, some of the books I've mentioned. I think Heidi maybe has been there before. Like I said, that's where I went to get some guests. There's a lot of information. You get to sign up to sit down with each of these mentors for 15 minutes. It's really quick. And you're trying to squeeze these things in with the other let's say a hundred or so participants or attendees. You're going to the live ones, during breaks you're all trying to get into the mentors and sometimes you have to skip one or two of the lectures if you want, or maybe skip all of them on a given day so you can sit down with each of the different mentors, pick their brains about the jobs that they do or what they're talking about.

And so, I don't get any compensation for promoting it. I tend not to promote it actively very much anymore, but it's there and it's the only one like it that I'm aware of. And now here at NewScript, of course, we did a summit last April and we're probably going to do this again next April, which is an online kind of a version of that, but it doesn't have the mentorship, which is really a big piece of that conference. It'd almost be worth it being able to commiserate with 40 or 50 mentors while you're there.

I hope that's helpful. If you have any questions about that, you can contact me in NewScript or send me an email.

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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.

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The post Best First Resources to Use Before You Start Your Nonclinical Career Journey appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Interview with Dr. David Geier

In today's episode, Dr. David Geier explains how to market yourself using a combination of social media posts and public speaking. David is an orthopedic sports medicine specialist who recently added integrative medicine to his clinical practice.

Dr. Geier first appeared on our podcast in August 2018, in Episode 49, as a groundbreaking orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist. Since then, he's continued to innovate and has recently embarked on new clinical endeavors.

Our Episode Sponsor

This week's episode sponsor is the From Here to There: Leveraging Virtual Medicine Program from Sandrow Consulting.

Are you ready to say goodbye to burnout, take control of your schedule, increase your earnings, and enjoy more quality time with your family? You’re probably wondering how to do that without getting a new certification or learning a whole new set of nonclinical skills.

Here's the answer: The quickest way to achieve more freedom and joy is to leverage virtual medicine.

Dr. Cherisa Sandrow and I discussed this in Podcast Episode 266. Cherisa and her team are now preparing to relaunch their comprehensive program for building and running your own telehealth business.

If you want to learn the tools and skills you need to live life on your own terms – then you should check it out today. After completing the 10-week program, you’ll be ready to take your career to the next level.

The program starts soon, and there are a limited number of openings. To help you get a glimpse into the program, Sandrow Consulting is offering a series of FREE Webinars. Go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/freedom to sign up and learn why telehealth is the quickest way to begin your career journey.

Our Show Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Surgical Career Evolution: Beyond Social Media

In the world of medicine, staying connected with patients and colleagues through social media has become increasingly important. Dr. David Geier, a seasoned medical professional, has masterfully harnessed the power of social media to enhance his medical practice. These are the strategies he employed to leverage social media effectively.

1. Content Creation and Engagement with AI

   One of Dr. Geier's standout strategies is content creation. He recognized that a consistent flow of engaging content is vital to reach and retain an online audience. To streamline this process, he embraced AI tools, such as Copy.ai, to generate ideas for blog posts and content. By doing so, he ensured a regular output of valuable information for his followers.

2. Making Medical Information Accessible
   

   He emphasizes the importance of making medical information accessible to a broader audience. Understanding that complex medical jargon can alienate the average person, he opts for clarity and simplicity. His content resonates with his target audience on social media.

3. Sharing Medical Advances and Insights
   

   Dr. Geier doesn't stop at content creation. He uses social media to discuss advancements in the medical field. By sharing these insights, he positions himself as an informed and forward-thinking medical professional in the eyes of his audience.

4. Observing Trends
   

   In addition to sharing his insights, David actively observes and acts on trends in medicine and social media. He observed the growth of integrative and functional medicine, as well as the growth in AI. This led to his making major strategic decisions about his practice and in his marketing efforts.

Shift to Preventive Medicine & Non-Surgical Care

David shared valuable insights on transitioning from a traditional medical practice to his focus on preventive medicine and non-surgical approaches. He emphasized the importance of staying well-informed about the latest research and treatments, as well as maintaining a strong commitment to patient care.

Embrace innovation and leverage technology, such as AI, for tasks like content creation. – David Geier, MD

Summary

To connect with David, visit his website at drdavidgeier.com. You can reach out to him via the contact form on his site. You can also find him on various social media platforms under the handle “drdavidgeier,” including X, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, where he enthusiastically engages with fellow physicians venturing into podcasting and video creation.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode. 

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• How to Build a Platform and Create Authority with Dr. David Geier – 049
• Dr. David Geier's Website
• Dr. Geier's LinkedIn Page
• David's X (formerly Twitter) Account
• David's Facebook Page
• Better Than Ever: Dr. Geier's YouTube Channel
• From Here to There: Leveraging Virtual Medicine
• NewScr!pt

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 321

How to Market Your Surgical and Nonsurgical Careers Like a Pro

- Interview with Dr. David Geier

John: Today's guest first appeared on the podcast here in August of 2018. That was episode 49. That was a long time ago, and he was quite a groundbreaker then in terms of he was using social media, he had a podcast. He was using other platforms basically to market himself and his business and his practice. But since then, he has continued to do new things, break new ground and even sort of shifted his clinical activity a little bit. I definitely wanted to get today's guest back to the podcast. So with that, Dr. David Geier, welcome to the podcast.

Dr. David Geier: Oh, thanks for having me. I cannot believe it's been that long. I did remember that it was before COVID, but I just did not remember it being five years ago. That's scary how quickly time seems to pass.

John: Well, usually when people say that, it's because they're so busy, that it just goes by like that.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah, that's a good point. Absolutely.

John: Because I know you've been into doing a lot of different things. It's going to be great to hear about it. I don't want to reiterate everything that we said at the last, but give us a little thumbnail of back when you were in practice, why you jumped into social media and why your practice was really a little different from most other orthopedists in terms of connecting with patients. And then we'll get into the more recent stuff.

Dr. David Geier: Well, it was interesting way back in 2008 or so, I was running a sports medicine program at an academic medical center here in Charleston. And anybody that's worked in academics knows I'm trying to build a sports medicine program and I'm trying to work with marketing to get more exposure. We need dollars to get team relationships and various components to help us grow. But in academics, you have to go through all these different layers to then a lot of times get a "no."

But the person that worked that was spearheading musculoskeletal health and the musculoskeletal program at that program talked to me and said, "Hey I think you'd be great at social media." And this is back when really Twitter and Facebook were just starting. And she's like, "You should do a website and you should do Twitter and Facebook." And I had no idea like, "What in the world? I'm a surgeon. I cut on people, I stand on the sidelines at football games." And she's like, "No, I think you'd be great. I hear you talk to people about injuries."

And so, sort of clueless to the whole thing, I was like, "All right, I'll give it a try." Not knowing at all, one, how much time I was going to end up putting into it, but then how much I would enjoy sharing information, not just one-on-one with a patient, but one on a hundred, one on a thousand. Because it could be seen not just by tons of people, obviously, but at different points in time. They didn't have to watch it live. They could see it later. And so many people commented over the years and it ballooned into this thing because so many people went to see a doctor and they tell me, "I had no idea what he said. I didn't understand a word he said or why. That's the only option I had. And so your articles and your videos, or your podcasts like I used to do back then were so helpful."

And it sort of ballooned. You get this positive feedback and then you network with other physicians, in my world, athletic trainers and physical therapists. And it just became this community. And it just took off. It started as a way to grow that sports medicine program, but it very quickly peeled away from that a little bit and it turned into writing a regular newspaper column for the Charleston newspaper. It turned into very, very frequent TV interviews and radio interviews down here. And just so many different opportunities. Honestly, it took on a life of its own and became something that was taking me 20, 30 plus sometimes more hours a week and then I had to sort of navigate those challenges.

But I don't regret it for a minute. I feel proud that I was sort of on the leading edge of that. I will say that I've backed off a little bit. Not completely, we'll talk about that, but there are people that have taken that baton and run. But it was really, really cool that I got into it having literally no idea what I was getting myself into. But it turned into something that quite honestly, not only changed my career, but it changed my life.

John: Yeah. That's awesome. And I remember back in that episode, because I was listening back to it a little while ago, I think you had said at that point you had already done a thousand media presentations or jobs. I guess we're talking about vignettes and when people interview you or do something like that, right?

Dr. David Geier: Yeah. Well, it's probably over 3,500 now because now I'm the chief medical expert for two TV stations here. And I'm on every day, sometimes three, four times a day in recorded segments. But back then when it was one off things reporters would reach out to me. It was a lot of time. I don't regret it. I love communicating and doing interviews in Spokane, Washington and all these places. A lot of things I never would've guessed came of it. It's great. It still is great.

John: One of the questions I always get is, as a quote, whatever it is, as a dermatologist, as an orthopedist, can I really do that kind of thing? And I guess my question to you is, I don't think you're just talking about ortho, you're the resource for at least some of these places just for anything medical. Is that right?

Dr. David Geier: I don't get as much medical, even though I do get more of that now. And we're going to talk about my practice pivot here in a little bit. But I do get a little bit because people see me on TV and as my role as chief medical expert for those two TV stations, I'm talking about all kinds of medical topics. I probably do get more that way. But even online, I still focus primarily on orthopedics and sports medicine. But you're right, and I've heard this from other physicians that are active in social media. Once people become comfortable with you, whether it's watching your videos or reading your articles, it's just natural for them to say, "Hey, by the way, I've got X problem or X condition." And it does sometimes get away from what you do.

I've always found that interesting, that people reach out to physicians they don't even know. But they do know them in a way because they've spent time listening to a podcast, watching their videos, reading their articles. And I think there's something really valuable about that. I hear so many physicians talk about how much time they're going to put into it. But part of the reason so many of us went into medicine is to help people. This is just a different way to do that. It's not that one's better than the other. It's just a different way to reach people and help people.

John: Are you to the point now where so many people are reaching out to you or you're already committed to do these regular interviews or a short speech or something? Are you still promoting yourself in newer ways? Are you doing anything on social media or is that going in another direction? How's that going?

Dr. David Geier: No, that's a great question. Because I'm the king of "Try this, see if it works. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work, bail." There's a whole lot of things that I have done for a little while and stopped. But then there's a lot of things I kept up with. One of my podcasts, the Dr. David Geier show, I think I got to like 420 episodes. Got it up to right close to COVID. And then I just decided "Hey, let's move on."

YouTube has been consistent for me since 2015 or something. I've got close to 100,000 followers. I've been very consistent there. But I've dabbled in a lot of things. I tried TikTok videos for a little while. I tried YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. I might go back to that at some point. It was a lot of work for something I wasn't feeling like I was getting that much out of.

I did try a podcast about a year and a half, two years ago. That was a live show that then I turned into a podcast. And that was a lot of fun to do, especially live. But it was a lot of work and I wasn't feeling like I was getting that. That's when I was trying to promote my new practice mode and it wasn't helping me there. So I sort of scaled that back. I might go back to that because I really like the live interaction that you can do now with live streaming and things.

There's a lot of different things that I've tried, but right now it's focusing YouTube mostly and then the traditional media that I do. I used to put on social media as well, but there gets to a point where if you create so much content, you sort of overwhelm viewers, overwhelm readers. So, I'm sort of cognizant of that too. And I'm on TV so much here locally that if I put that out on Twitter every day or x every day, I drive everybody crazy.

John: Now I know my listeners are going to have these questions, so I'm going to substitute for them. On any of the YouTube stuff, that's kind of your main thing now in terms of connecting with patients and clients and people in general teaching. Are you doing any monetization of YouTube, passive or active or anything like that?

Dr. David Geier: I do. And I will say I did resist that for a long time. I had a couple videos on my YouTube channel early, but I really started in earnest really going at it weekly, sometimes more than weekly in 2015. And I probably didn't start monetizing it until maybe 2019, 2020, somewhere in there. And I thought long and hard about it. I grew my channel to 20,000 or 30,000 before I started monetizing it.

And it wasn't as much to make money. I'm not going to lie. I don't get that much from it when you hear these other people that are making tens of thousand a month or more. It is nothing like that. But it was a way, as much as anything, just helped me. I put way more in expenses. You can't see, but I've got a whole TV studio here in this office with four key lights. I've got a hair light, I've got a pre-amp, a DSLR camera, a boom mic. All that stuff costs money. I have a virtual assistant that helps me edit the videos and put captions. All that stuff just costs money.

The amount I get from YouTube every month doesn't come close to covering any of that but it helps a little bit. And honestly, just for a short five second ad at the beginning of videos, even though it's not specific medical advice and I'm very specific about that in my YouTube videos, essentially they are getting advice in the sense, they're getting information about what an injury is. That's a little honestly better than just reading a WebMD article or Mayo Clinic article. I don't feel that bad about it. But again, I went a long time saying, "You know what? I don't want to do that. That's how I justified it. I'm not saying I'm right. That was just my thought process.

John: No, I think it makes sense. Let me ask you then, I shift gears to the speaking, because you're being interviewed, you're doing presentations and so forth. Do you do any paid speaking?

Dr. David Geier: I do keynote speaking. I do have a burnout talk, a physician burnout talk because I've been through that myself. But I don't do any like Pfizer. Well, Pfizer wouldn't be something for orthopedics. But Arthrex sends you out to talk about a surgical technique and implants and stuff. I don't do any of that kind of paid speaking, but I do keynote speeches on burnout or leadership or personal excellence. I'll get a few thousand dollars in travel paid for by some of those.

I don't do a lot of that. I was actually doing a lot right before COVID and then obviously COVID killed the speaking industry. That's starting to open back up but I do it more if it's the right opportunity, not necessarily to make money. Because it's hard to leave your practice and leave your family. Really, if it's a good opportunity with a good audience and an audience that would be receptive, especially to the burnout message, that's why I do it. The fee is more than anything just to sort of reimburse me for the cost and time of leaving my family and practice.

John: Well, you mentioned the burnout and talking about burnout. That kind of intrigued me. Now, I don't remember if your burnout occurred before we spoke last time or since, but tell me just a little bit about that and what do you talk about and what are you noticing now? Because this has been a big issue even before the pandemic. I think it exploded during the pandemic. I'd just like to get your perspective on that.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was way before we did our podcast. This was back at 2012, 2013. Toward the end of my eight years at that academic medical center. I was working really hard at just trying to build a sports medicine program and run it. Doing all of that work I was talking about social media wise as well sort of on top of that. And then as a lot of us in medicine know, there were a lot of changes going on back then that weren't necessarily what I wanted as a physician. I had a stable OR team and we got this new OR manager that made all the surgeons lives hell. And there was just a lot going on.

So, it was external change compounded with me just running myself into the ground. And I hit this situation where I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating well, I wasn't spending time with my kids and I was just miserable. I was getting angry all the time and I couldn't really figure out why.

And I had that awful OR nurse manager. I won't tell the whole story, but sort of opened my eyes that I was the problem. Now to be fair, she was a lot of the problem and she ended up getting fired. But I realized that there was some truth to that, that I was responsible for a lot of this stuff that happened.

And so, I had to make changes to myself that took about 18 months, committing to getting more sleep and committing to saying "no" to a lot of things and committing to delegating stuff that I shouldn't be doing, committing to spending time with my kids no matter what. If that meant not attending faculty meetings so I could go to my kids' soccer game, so be it.

I ended up actually leaving that academic institution about a year later. But it took me a long time to get through that burnout. And to your point, we are seeing more and more even unrelated to COVID. As you are well aware, this started even before COVID. All the electronic medical records changes, the hospital ownership of practice and being pushed to see more patients in less time and having to do more and more of the tasks ourselves as physicians. That to be fair, anybody could do, you don't necessarily need a physician, but that's all time that's on physicians keeping them away from their families and away from hobbies and things.

So it is getting worse, but fortunately there is more of an attention on this now. Not just the physicians and them making their own changes, but I do get the sense that hospitals and these institutions care and are trying to make changes. But it's hard. You got bottom line financial interests and then you've got physician well-being interests and where that balance is, it's not going to be the same at any institution, but that's going to play a large role in what medicine looks like over the next 10 years. I really believe that may drive if it continues the way it's going people out of medicine or like an integrative practice, cash-based practice. Or we're going to get a handle on this and we're going to figure out ways to help physicians be quality physicians, but also have healthy lives.

John: Well, I'm kind of encouraged a little bit that you've noticed at least some more recognition of this. When I've asked other colleagues in the past, like, "Okay, tell me a couple of the hospitals that you're familiar with that have now taken burnout seriously." And it's like a big zero or they started a program and it was trying to teach resilience. And it's like, "Well, I'm already working 18 hours a day. Why being more resilient? How's that going to help?" Those kinds of things.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah. And every institution is different. There's no question. I have absolutely heard what you're talking about when I give speeches and these people come up to me and they're like, God, I left medicine because I experienced the exact. I tell my story and they're like, "I know exactly what you're feeling." And I hear from medical students saying, "I'm really worried this is going to happen to me."

But I do see evidence that it's starting to change. I hear of hospital systems where they spend the money to get scribes for physicians just to help them get out the door before it's dark outside. And there's a variety of different things. A lot more meet and greets. Because I think relationship between physicians, connections and communities and getting to know each other is so important. And I see a lot of hospital systems really working on that. And I think that's a good thing. There are some trying, but as you're saying, yes, there's a long, long way to go.

John: When you're asked to speak on that topic, is it usually a group of doctors? Is it usually a residency? Is it a hospital? What's your experience?

Dr. David Geier: I've never gotten asked by a residency. That's actually really good. It tends to be either medical organization. I did MGMA, the practice managers group not that long ago, which was really good because they're the ones that now will go and implement some of the suggestions I talked about. But a lot of times it's more medical societies. It'll be the Society of Neurology. I'm not going to say specific ones. Or it'll be a county medical society in some big city that can bring me in.

I like it when there's some way to access medical students and residents, but unfortunately, I don't get that opportunity much. But when I have had that opportunity, I think that's where it's really important because if you can sort of go into medicine saying, "Hey, I'm going to prioritize my wellbeing. I'm still going to take good care of patients, but I know what potentially can happen if I run myself into the ground and allow myself to be run into the ground. I think that that's better.

I think the challenge comes to those of us that have been in medicine for years and years or decades, and we've always done things a certain way and now we're being forced to change. I'm hoping the medical students that didn't have rigid patterns already, maybe they'll be able to adjust to the new world of medicine. And it is very new compared to what you and I probably trained under. I really hope the medical students is a different battle for them than what the people that started a while ago really dealt with.

John: Yeah, I hope so too. We're going to segue into what you're doing now a little bit more, what's different now about your practice and so forth. But I want to mention your website because I hate to wait till the end in case someone doesn't listen to the end. It's drdavidgeier.com.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah, drdavid. And then nobody gets the spelling wrong, but I own every domain name of any possible way you can misspell it so you'll end up on it. Dr. David Geier. D-R D-A-V-I-D G-E-I-E-R is how I spell it. And then all the social media is that same handle @drdavidgeier. It doesn't matter what the platform is, but yeah, I appreciate that.

John: Yeah. And if somebody wants to get motivated to do something, I'd say just look you up on YouTube and find you a channel, because it just shows you what you can do if you just spend a little time to organize and get in front of the camera.

Dr. David Geier: And it isn't hard. So many people are like "I could never speak on camera. I could never write." Just start. If you read my first articles, they were horrendous. My first few newspaper columns were God awful. Really bad. My first few YouTube videos, really, really bad. Not just from a tech standpoint, but I was terrible. But it's reps. I bet and this is no criticism of you, but I bet your first few podcasts are nothing like they are now.

John: Yeah.

Dr. David Geier: Just start and you don't have to do every day of the week, literally once a week. And you batch them, you do four at a time and you get a month's worth done all at once. Just start. I really believe, maybe not everybody, but so many physicians, once you start, you may find you actually like it and like communicating in this sort of online world. I think it's really gratifying.

John: Yeah, I think if you listen to my first few podcasts that would be kind of hard to listen to. But we learn over time and it becomes just natural after a while. And you'd be surprised how much you think you don't have anything to say, but it's really not if you learn certain tricks and how to brainstorm in that. You could probably sit down and come up with 20 topics yourself right now and sit down in front of a camera and do it just because people are asking you questions and you can answer those questions. And that's basically what we're doing.

Dr. David Geier: That absolutely is one of the best brainstorming ideas you can have. Literally keep a sheet of paper somewhere or a notebook when people ask you questions. Especially if you hear the same question two or three times in clinic, do a video or do an article on that because I promise people are Google searching for that or searching on YouTube for that. And that's easily the best source of content you could ever have is just what are your patients asking you.

John: Yeah, absolutely. Great advice. Now tell us what you're doing now that's different from what you started doing the first I don't know 10 years or so because it does have some new aspects to it. I'm really anxious to hear about that and I'll probably have to pick your brain about some clinical.

Dr. David Geier: I practiced for 16 years as what I call a traditional orthopedic surgeon. You have an orthopedic injury, very often you fix it surgically, put it back together, that kind of thing. And loved it. Sports medicine, it's mostly arthroscopic surgery. But just over two years ago I pivoted to basically get away from surgery into what I call anti-aging orthopedics. I joined a practice where I was actually a patient myself that was integrative medical practice. They do a lot of hormone replacement, a lot of things, preventative medicine and you just feel better, obviously live longer, but feel better as you live longer.

Actually, my doctor actually helped me through that burnout phase. I realized I was low in a bunch of different health markers, so we've really worked to get that fixed. But then I realized, "Man, there's a lot of things out here that are available that you just can't use in traditional medicine and traditional orthopedics because it's either considered experimental by the FDA or it is approved by the FDA, but you have to use it off-label."

And so, she talked to me and said, "Hey, would you like to come on as bone and joint health?" She and another doctor do, again, integrative medicine. It's sort of all different aspects of medicine, but for a lot of those patients who have arthritis, they have other joint pain and things like that.

And so, I was a little nervous about leaving traditional medicine and insurance-based medicine and surgery but I made the leap maybe a little early, but I don't regret it now. But getting away from surgery and trying to help people avoid surgery with some of these anti-aging and regenerative medicine techniques, we were talking about this before we started, I spent a year studying for my anti-aging and regenerative medicine boards. I had to take a written exam, do an oral exam, which was just awful because I don't remember cardiovascular medicine and all.

I had to learn all these different types of medicine all over again but it was well worth it. At least at the time I got that certification in September of last year 2022. I was only the second orthopedic surgeon in the country to have that board certification.

But it's been great. 40-ish percent of my patients fly in or travel in to see me here in Charleston, South Carolina. It's great. It's a big shift. I miss surgery a little bit, but I realize not that much. And I'm really grateful because I can hopefully help a decent percentage of people not need that surgery. Not just now, but hopefully down the road. So, it was a big change and that's been really the last two, two and a half years of my life.

John: Now the work that you're doing in that regard, does it still require a medical license? Are you doing injections? Are you doing other things like that?

Dr. David Geier: Yeah. No, it's all still a medical license. Now three board certifications. When people think of regenerative medicine, people typically think of stem cells. I don't really do stem cells, even though there are some orthopedic surgeons that do it. There's some things about stem cells that I think make it not terribly effective as a treatment here in the US at least for orthopedics.

But some of the things that we do, some non-physicians do osteopaths and things like that, they don't tend, at least as far as orthopedic conditions, really know what they're treating. Not all, but a lot. They just have their one preferred treatment. They use it over and over and over with people, and I'm not a big fan of that. But yeah, it's all very, very well researched. It's not just, "Hey, let's just try this and see if it works." It involves things like peptides and some regenerative treatments, maybe like exosomes or PRP modalities.

We have hyperbaric oxygen chambers in our practice. We have shockwave and a number of other different things, off-label medications to stop the damage in arthritis and things like that. And a lot of combination treatments. Not just one thing over and over, but different things based on the problems and the specific nature of the patient.

We have our own pharmacy that's regulated by the state pharmacy board and we use FDA approved compounding pharmacies for the raw ingredients that our pharmacy uses and things like that. I think it's great. I'm glad I didn't have to set it up. The doctor that started the practice started it 20 years ago, and so it's a well-oiled machine now. But there's a lot to it. I'm very fortunate that I was invited to be a part of it, but I do think that that's largely where we'll see if orthopedics heads there, but I think all of medicine or at least a lot of it is headed that way.

And the burnout thing was really interesting because so many of the integrative medicine physicians on meeting, that's largely why they left their insurance-based practices is burnout type issues. I'm curious to see if burnout drives a huge growth in integrative medicine, cash-based medicine, preventative medicine. I don't know. We'll see. That wasn't really the reason I did it, but that's what I'm hearing from other physicians that are getting into that world.

John: Yeah, it sounds like a little bit like the people I've talked to that have gone into functional medicine. And so, there's also some other things like that. It's where they can still be a physician and some of those things, truly, they're more of a consultant, but they get to use that physician brain and help clients, help patients.

I think a lot of the approaches that are being discovered and applied that aren't surgical and aren't traditional medicine have beneficial effects that we don't know and understand fully. And that means to me that they're going to be working for things that those other areas just didn't ever have a solution for, at least to date.

Dr. David Geier: It's exciting. Medicine, at least what is going on in the labs, it's progressing very quickly. The challenge a lot of times is that a lot of times the research is coming along faster than the regulatory bodies can examine that evidence. And so, there's a lot of things that seem to work very well that the FDA through no fault of their own just hasn't gotten around to sort of dealing with. And so, you hear the patients, the general public say, "Hey, we're so far behind Europe."

And it's good and bad in some ways. Obviously you want to make everything safe for people, but it is also leading to this growth of the integrative and functional medicine physicians who I really do think generally try to keep an eye on the research and don't push the envelope too far. But unfortunately, I think then you do have people that, "Hey, I can make cash for this and make a lot of money, maybe non-physicians that do push it too far." And so, it is really an interesting space. It'll really be interesting to see how this plays out over the next decade or so.

John: Yeah, I'm interested to see what happens and I'm going to keep looking for guests to come on and tell me more about it in the future. That was a good introduction for us. Do you have a few more minutes? I have one more thing I want to ask you about.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah, absolutely.

John: Because something I read, or maybe it was our conversation, you mentioned AI. I don't know too many physicians have integrated even into writing an article, much less anything else. But I think you have used certain types of AI tools for some of what you do.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah, I actually played around with the tool. I was sort of an early adopter and there's a million AI tools, everybody knows Chat GPT, but of one that I have no relationship other than I pay money to use it. And there's probably better ones now, but I used one called Copy.ai. And to be fair, I haven't gone so far as to say, "All right, I'm going to let it write a video script for me, or I'm going to let it write a blog post." I know they can do that. I've tried it out just to see what it creates.

Where I've found AI to be helpful, we were talking, this is going to sound completely cheesy, but it works. You were talking about great ways to brainstorm and we were talking about writing down questions patients ask, but literally you can search, you can make, depending on how you organize the tool and it's search function and how you set it up, "Give me 10 topic ideas for blog posts about pseudogout" or something like that that'll spit out common symptoms. Things that you honestly could do. But you could brainstorm 50 topics in a heartbeat.

I do know physicians, I was for a short period of time in this mentorship of cash-based physicians in various parts of the country and various specialties. And the guy that ran it was a big proponent of using AI and some of the people in that group tried it, and they write all of their blog posts using AI and they'll just change grammar words and things like that.

It is that good when you remember that you're writing in Layman's terms. You do not want to write, I would argue in very, very detailed scientific terms, because the average person will read your blog post and have no idea what you're talking about. And AI does a pretty good job of translating it into English, but you have to be using these tools. And that's why I don't know that Chat GPT, the times I tried it was terribly helpful. But Copy.ai and I know there's others, it can generate a bullet point, like an outline for a topic, and then within each bullet point a few points within that and you cross out the ones you don't want and you rearrange the ones and then it'll generate a script or a blog post and then you can edit that. And it's surprisingly good.

But at the end of the day, you as a physician sort of need to keep an eye on it, read it, make sure that it's technically right, and that it makes sense to the reader or viewer or listener. But it is amazing what's out there. I'm not going to say that it replaces us, but it can do a lot of the heavy lifting. And when we're talking about creating content, I've been amazed. I don't know how I'll necessarily use AI going into my actual practice, but at least from a every now and then I need to come up with something, yeah, I think it can be helpful.

John: Yeah. I think for people that are thinking about a blog, a podcast, an online course, anything that requires creating content, particularly if it's repetitive. I haven't had a lot of experience with it, but I know that one of my team sometimes uses. I can tell it's an AI thing because I read it and I go, "Okay." But all I do is I just chop up the sentences and I put it in my own exactly voice and that saved me 80, 90% of the time. It's another "no excuse" for not doing this stuff. You don't have the time? It'll take you two minutes to just edit this thing.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah. It really is impressive. You could have it write a 500 word article and you can tell because it may repeat a point, maybe different words, but it's basically saying the same thing or it seems out of order because I don't know how well it thinks through a human train of thought, but it's surprisingly good. If you said "Generate a 500 word blog post on pseudogout", literally 10 seconds and there it is. And then you just go behind it. I don't want to necessarily encourage you to defer the whole content creation to AI, but it is a good start. If you've got writer's block and you are like, "What am I going to write about?" that's another way to at least get started.

John: Yeah. I think we're just scratching the surface. I heard something on the radio or somewhere where somebody told some type of AI to write a 500 page screenplay and five minutes later they had it. And they said it wasn't bad. It was a really good screenplay. Okay, this is crazy.

Dr. David Geier: Well, I think it'll be interesting, and I am not an expert on EMRs electronic medical records at all, but I do wonder when AI is starting to be used for EMRs. I think there's a lot of potential with that in terms of improving our lives. Obviously the information has got to be accurate and all that, but I think there is potential that AI could be really useful. And I say that as an outsider to these systems, but I actually think it could be very helpful, just what I've seen in the social media content world. I've got to believe there's a way to make it useful for physicians in just documenting clinic visits and hospital visits and things like that.

John: Yeah. I hadn't thought about it, but now that you mention it, it just seems like with the right tweaks and the right protections, it could be one of the solutions to this dreadful EMR that we have to work on.

Dr. David Geier: And there's money to be made in it, which makes me think it's already being worked on. Because everybody knows the EMR issue is a huge issue. And the EMR companies, there's a lot of money for them to be made if people pivot to them because it's easy to use. So, it's coming for sure.

John: Okay. Just tell us again how to get in touch with you, how to follow you, the best places.

Dr. David Geier: Yeah. The best place is my website, drdavidgeier.com. There's a contact form I'd love to hear from you if you are listening to this podcast. Even if it's just to say, "Hey, I want to start doing content." I'd love to just know other people that are content providers. So reach out. I get comments and questions from all over the world, so I love interacting.

The links to my social media are on my website, but everywhere, every platform, it's drdavidgeier, whether that's X, which I actually love consuming. I don't post it that much there, but I love consuming. YouTube I'm obviously on. Instagram and Facebook, definitely reach out. I love, love, love, love to meet physicians that are starting to get into podcasting and video creation. I just love it. I wish we could all do it, quite honestly.

John: Hey, I really appreciate the comments today and everything you've shared with us. And with that, I'll just thank you and say goodbye.

Dr. David Geier: Oh, absolutely. I really, really enjoyed it and I hope we can do it in another four or five years. I'll be curious where medicine is and where you and I are at that point.

John: All right. Bye-bye.

Dr. David Geier: Take care.

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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. I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

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. 

The post How to Market Your Surgical and Nonsurgical Careers Like a Pro – 321 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Dana Corriel is an internist, speaker, coach and expert social media doctor. She completed medical school at the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, and her internal medicine residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

After Dana finished her residency, started practicing, and had three children, she needed some time off. “I chose, after my third child, to stay home. I felt like I needed to bond with my child. That was a personal decision, not a knock on anyone who works.”

Everyone needs a break to get back on track. It helped Dana realize she had interests and talents outside of medicine. “The irony of that was that I actually was just a good a mom when I worked, as when I didn't work, it was just me that I needed to discover during that break.”

Displaying Expertise

Coaching health care professionals on how to maximize their online presence, she created #SoMeDocs (“Doctors on Social Media”). It's a Facebook Group and business for physicians looking to impact health care and grow their business using available online tools.

Dana is also a writer, iPhone photographer, and creative entrepreneur. You can read her articles on KevinMD, Medium, Doximity and other media outlets. She’s also been writing on her blog, drcorriel.com since 2016.

Lately, she has doubled her efforts. Her Facebook Group has been growing quickly. Its members are an engaged group of physicians interested in using social media for their medical businesses and nonmedical careers. As you can imagine, she’s very active on all of the major social media sites. And she’s developed a following as an expert in the field.

Balancing Multiple Interests

It’s amazing how Dana integrates her clinical careers with multiple creative outlets. I was impressed by the way she weaves writing, travel, photography, family, business and medicine into her life. And I get the feeling that she’s just getting started.

“I do all kinds of things. I write, I photograph, travel. But the entire overarching theme is, things that are creative and out of the box.”

“It's about leveraging whatever platform you like. And honestly, if you actually like to do it, then it becomes about having fun. It's no longer about working. That's the magic of using social media.”

Click here to download the Free TRANSCRIPT

Dana leverages several social media platforms for her clinical practice and non-clinical activities. “In my writings, I delve into travel; that is not medical. But I also write about healthcare.”

She started Social Media Doctors (a.k.a., SoMeDocs) as a resource to help other physicians use social media. “We can use it to increase our patient load. We can use it to better health care by taking on a topic that we're passionate about. It's also about networking. It's about beating burnout.”

Announcements

Dr. Heather Fork, physician career coach at Doctors Crossing, recently featured a written interview with me on her blog. Check it out if you want to know a little bit more about what I’m doing, how I started this podcast, and my perspective on career change.

Also, look over all of Heather’s other blog posts. She’s an awesome writer and physician advocate. She’s an icon in career transition because she’s been coaching for TEN years and has helped literally hundreds of physicians, maybe even thousands, find joy and fulfillment in their careers.

You can find our interview at A Podcast You Don't Want to Miss.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country, with over 650 graduates. Unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. And Economist Magazine recently ranked the business school #1 in the world for the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

University of Tennessee PEMBA students bring exceptional value to their organizations. While in the program, you'll participate in a company project, thereby contributing to your organization.

Graduates have taken leadership positions at major healthcare organizations. And they've become entrepreneurs and business owners.

By joining the University of Tennessee physician executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to advance your career. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office by calling (865) 974-6526 or go to vitalpe.net/physicianmba.

Using Twitter

According to Dana, “Don't just tweet to tweet. Remember the following:

• Stay positive
• Include others
• Be careful about tagging people
• Collaborate
• Be respectful”

Physicians are People, Too

Physicians tell their patients to exercise, eat right, stress less, and get enough sleep. Maybe doctors should take their own advice. “We all need an outlet. Our gas tank needs to be full to give to others. It is not selfish to focus on yourself because you will be a better server to others.”

To avoid burnout as a physician:

• Take a break to reset and reassess your goals.
• Bring balance into your life by doing other things that interest you, even while practicing.

Take Time Off

Parents also need a break sometimes. “You're a better parent when you recharge, and you actually take time away from your kids.”

However, time together is even better. “We made a decision to travel frequently and more regularly as a family. Our kids are still young enough to enjoy experiences with us. My blog is going to remain a memory that my kids can literally look back on.”

Summary

I think we can all learn from Dana's example. If we're feeling overly stressed with our current situation, we should step back, take control of our lives, and create more balance. Start slowly, and gradually make it work.

Eager to Build a Rewarding Career as a Medical Science Liaison?

Here's the smart way to do it (even if you never completed a residency training program)…

I recently released my first formal course How to Secure a Career as a Medical Science Liaison.

It’s designed to take you from where you are in your career, to your first job as an MSL in the growing pharmaceutical industry.

I chose to focus on this career because it's open to both licensed and unlicensed physicians.

The course is now open. It will be closed for enrollment soon. And the current price is the LOWEST price at which it will ever be offered.

To learn more, go to vitalpe.net/mslcourse.

Links for today's episode:

Dr. Dana Corriel
Dr. Dana Corriel on Facebook
Dr. Dana Corriel on Instagram
Dr. Dana Corriel on Pinterest
Dr. Dana Corriel on LinkedIn
Dr. Dana Corriel on Twitter
Dr. Dana Corriel’s Email
SoMeDocs
SoMeDocs Facebook Group
Dr. Dana Corriel on KevinMD
Harvard Medical School Conference: Writing, Publishing, and Social Media for Healthcare Professionals
Rush University: Women in Medicine Summit 2019
Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine – Montefiore
Physician Blogs: Non-Clinical Physician Authored Blogs

Thanks to our sponsor…

Thanks to the UT Physician Executive MBA program for sponsoring the show. It’s an outstanding, highly rated, MBA program designed for working physicians. It might be just what you need to prepare for that joyful, well-paying career. You can find out more at vitalpe.net/physicianmba.

I hope to see you next time on the PNC Podcast.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Disclaimers:

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. 

Many of the links that I refer you to, and that you’ll find in the show notes, 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, that I have personally used or am very familiar with.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. It should not be construed as 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 counsellor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

Right click here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Here are the easiest ways to listen:

vitalpe.net/itunes  or vitalpe.net/stitcher  

The post The Delightful Life of the Expert Social Media Doctor – 094 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.