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In today's episode, Dr. Frieda Wiley shares her secrets for thriving in a remote healthcare job.

Frieda is a pharmacist who worked remotely for several years and is the author of Telecommuting Psychosis: From Surviving to Thriving While Working in Your Pajama Pants.

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Telecommuting Psychosis?

Telecommuting Psychosis is not a recognized clinical condition. However, Dr. Wiley used it in order to draw attention to the potentially severe consequences that can occur from the isolation and lack of direct human contact that results from working remotely.

Frieda wrote the book to shed light on this issue, and to share techniques for preventing and reversing the adverse effects. Simple self-care measures that are described in the book can greatly help to eliminate these effects. 

Effects of Working Remotely

The drawbacks of working remotely in healthcare vary depending on your field and industry. But some of the more common psychological effects include:

1. depression,
2. feelings of isolation,
3. trouble unplugging from the online world,
4. lack of external stimulation, and
5. feeling invisible

There are direct medical effects resulting from long hours spent working remotely, such as elevated lipid levels, heart disease, low vitamin D levels, and weight gain. And there is the frequently encountered reduction in career advancement due to less direct interaction with supervisors and others in the workplace hierarchy. 

Dr. Frieda Wiley's Advice

 Just know that you have to be your own advocate for your work environment and for your health and that there's no shame in seeking help.

Thriving in a Remote Healthcare Job

Dr. Wiley has several suggestions for thriving in a remote job. To maintain mental health be sure to manage your social health, use an accountability partner, create a social calendar to enhance human interactions, develop a daily mindfulness practice, and “become a tourist in your own town.”

To improve your physical health you should first check the ergonomics of your remote working environment, schedule physical activity and formal exercise, supplement Vitamin D if needed, and take breaks every 20 minutes to address eye strain and dryness.

Properly integrate childcare into your workday, if necessary. Keep workspace separate from other areas. And set boundaries with friends and people who live with you. 

Summary

Dr. Wiley addresses these topics and others in much more detail in her book. Go to her website to order it. If you have any questions regarding any of these subjects or would need coaching on how to identify and deal with the drawbacks of working remotely, you may use the contact form on her website, or send her an email at frieda@friedawiley.com.

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

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Links for Today's Episode:

• Telecommuting Psychosis: From Surviving to Thriving While Working in Your Pajama Pants
• Dr. Frieda Wiley's LinkedIn Page
• Add Discipline to Creativity to Be a Successful Medical Writer – 179
• How to Shine as a Technical Medical Writer – 155
• How to Become a Medical Writer with Dr. Mandy Armitage – 022
• How to Find Freedom as a Freelance Medical Writer with Dr. Emma Nichols – 056
• NewScr!pt

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Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 278

How to Go from Surviving to Thriving in a Remote Healthcare Job

- Interview with Dr. Frieda Wiley

John: When I was thinking about bringing on today's guest, I was really positive about it for a number of reasons. When I was chief medical officer at the hospital I worked at for 14 years, one of the people I worked most closely with was a pharmacist, a PharmD like our guest today who ran the pharmacy department at the hospital, and the whole system for that matter.

I'm also very fond of writers, medical writers in particular. And so, I'm really pleased to be able to have today's guest join us and talk a lot about these different things and about a book that she just recently wrote and published. So, with that, I'll say thanks for joining us today, Dr. Frieda Wiley.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Thank you for having me.

John: All right. Most of my guests are usually physicians, although anyone dealing with nonclinical careers comes on the podcast that we can get on here to learn something from. Obviously, Frieda is a PharmD not an MD, but like I say, I have a very strong affinity for pharmacists because I worked with so many in the past.

But the thing is, I was not aware of a couple of things. Of course, I knew that there were non-physicians that do medical writing. There are actually people that aren't even clinicians that do medical writing. So, I'm interested to hear about that from Frieda today.

And the other is this whole concept of telecommuting and telemedicine, telehealth. I guess I kind of knew in the back of my mind if pharmacists did that, but I really had no idea the scope and the amount that they did. I'm looking forward to learn about that and about some of the downsides of telecommuting. I guess you would put telehealth in that category. A lot to talk about today. Tell us a little bit about your background, your education, Frieda, and then your early clinical work.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Sure. As you mentioned, I am a pharmacist by terminal training. I actually had a previous career as a chemist in the aerospace industry. It's a brief career as a break between degrees. So, my undergraduate degrees are in biochemistry and Spanish.

John: Interesting.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah, I mixed it all in there. And when I went to pharmacy school, I kind of focused more on industry. That was my goal to actually work in the pharmaceutical industry. And that was really my introduction into medical writing. I went into standard or more traditional pharmacy practice I should say when I started.

So, I started as a community pharmacist originally as a floating pharmacist where I was traveling to different pharmacies and leaving other pharmacists who were on vacation or gotten sick. I was working for a small grocery store chain that was based predominantly in East Texas, rural areas. And about three months into that I was approached by management to work in medication therapy management, which ultimately became my introduction into remote work because I became a hybrid worker. Because I was a floating pharmacist who already had experience with different stores in different regions, different pharmacies. It made sense to have me travel to these different pharmacies and meet with patients 101 to review their medications. And because there wasn't a central office and I had a lot of administrative work to take care of phone calls, paperwork and things of that nature, then I worked from home at a regional office one to two days a week.

John: Okay. Yeah. So, you got a little taste of that at that point.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Right. And then I stayed in that role for about another year and then transitioned into working for a managed care firm where I did the exact same thing but in a completely remote setting. I was hired originally as a Spanish speaking pharmacist, serving the greater New York City population. And originally, I was under the impression I was going to have to move to Hoboken, New Jersey or somewhere in the New York City vicinity for that job and obviously become licensed in that area.

Telemedicine laws, as I'm sure you're aware, can be different, a little bit more flexible when it comes to licensure per state. And so, when the company found out that I had some remote experience already under my belt, they pitched me the idea of being fully remote because they wanted to get a head start and they knew it would take me a while to relocate.

John: Okay. I was just to say that can sound quite attractive. And again, I have to remember that there's probably different roles in let's say pharmacy and pharmacy services versus let's say a physician. But the physicians I talk to, they're like, "Oh yeah, the thing I love about telemedicine is I have more control. I can do it when I want to do it. And I don't have to really worry about getting dressed up and putting on a tie or whatever." But it sounds attractive, I would think to you as well. But I think you then later learned there were some downsides to it.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. There are downsides to it. And I think it depends on the industry you're in and the type of work that you do. There are many other areas in which there are pharmacists who are involved in patient care working remotely and using telemedicine. But in my case, I wasn't able to work what I wanted to. In my first pharmacy job, I set my own schedule because I'm scheduling appointments with patients and different things.

Well, in this case, they had the administrative part already taken care of and my entire work day was scheduled from 08:00 to 05:00. It became frustrating when it came to networking and what if I needed to go to the doctor. I would have to take vacation leave in order to do that because I didn't have the flexibility in my schedule that other telecommunicators sometimes enjoy.

John: Yeah. Actually, that reminds me of another example. And I do think there are some physicians who are locked into those kinds of schedules as well and other clinicians. For example, one of my children is a social worker and she ended up wanting to work remotely because she was moving at several different times. And she's starting to do, basically, it was utilization and case management type job remotely.

But you're right, they supplied the computer, she couldn't leave the house when she was working. She had set hours. So actually, it made her life no more flexible or easy to adjust to things than it was when she was driving into work. It's not always what you think. And some of those are definitely locked into a normal 09:00 to 05:00 routine, which can be more than 09:00 to 05:00. In fact, in a lot of these cases, they have a certain number of cases they have to do. And if they don't get it done in their eight hours, they might end up working nine or 10 hours. I don't know if that applied to you or not.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: In some cases, it did because, especially towards the end of the year with that particular company, they had numbers to meet and for some reason they realized that first year that we were way behind on our numbers in September. So, then our working hours were extended and, in some cases, we had to work weekends. So that quality of life that originally attracted me to that position, it went away very quickly.

John: Okay. Now I would like to put a pause on talking about this particular part of your life and how it led to writing the book only because I wanted to get a glimpse into this because you did mention, of course, that you were working at the pharma companies and you've done medical writing. And I'll just tell the listeners and I'm going to bring up your website right now, friedawiley.com. It is a place where you can purchase the book that we're going to be talking about.

But it's a good example for people that are interested in medical writing or maybe they're just getting into medical writing, it's an excellent website. It kind of puts everything out in different pages as an overview of what you do. You've got testimonials, I believe. You've got examples of the kind of writing you do. You've got a tab that says portfolio, for example. So, tell us how you got into medical writing, just a glimpse of some of the writing you've done and who you've done writing for.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. As I kind of alluded to earlier, when I was in pharmacy school, I had some rotations in the pharmaceutical industry, and specifically back when they still had a pharmaceutical division before they divested. And even though my internships were mainly in regulatory affairs, there were times where I supported the medical writing team, especially during that second summer, which introduced me to the concept. I'd never heard of it at that point.

And so, when I began practicing, I started freelancing while I was practicing. And it started out with, I remember sitting in a doctor's office one time and I saw this magazine. And at the time it really looked more like a slightly more glorified patient handout. I remember reading the content thinking I could do this. I had already written some pamphlets and things when I was on rotation with Indian Health Services. And I saw that as kind of a translation of that.

And so, I actually reached out to the company and I told them who I was and what I wanted to do. Not really the best approach. I really didn't understand the concept of pitching and things like that, but I didn't really hear anything else from them until a year later. And the editor reached out to me and said, "I'm sorry it took so long to get back to you, but we'd be interested in having you write for us."

And then also with doing the medication therapy management, because I was responsible for creating documents that went to the patient back then, this was before the government had set standards for how the documentation would look and different things like that. So, I had to come up with my own templates. I had to come up with a core messaging and phrasing that I might want to use, and then also customize the information that was included, going to each patient as well as to the prescriber.

That skillset helps me become bilingual, not just Spanish English, but in terms of being able to communicate in plain and scientific language. And I leveraged that as I pursued other writing opportunities.

John: Another example of each one of us has certain skills that we accumulate over time, and your set of skills might be different from mine, but they can all be leveraged in a different way for a particular job or series of jobs. It's just a good example of someone who's been a freelance writer, that's made a good living and enjoyed it and leveraged their clinical background and so forth. That was like I said, one of the reasons I wanted to have you come on and talk about that a little bit. What kind of writing have you done besides what you just described? Just some samples of some of the kind of writing that you've participated in.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Right, sure. I have written slide decks. I've written needs assessments, advisory board summaries, executive summaries that they require. I have written scripts not only for presentations, but also for e-learning, webinars, different things like that. I have also written patient handouts as well as marketing information that would go to physicians as well as general audiences.

John: Yeah, I think it's easy to say, okay, wait, I can only write, let's say maybe CME manuscripts and maybe something for the public. But there's so many different variations, and I've heard this before, needs assessment, learning needs, slide decks. And you're doing something for the advisory board, is that what you said?

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yes.

John: Those things are beautiful, awesome presentations. You've got to really have some skills to do that.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Thank you.

John: Because I've been on the receiving end of some of their presentations and they're almost overwhelming sometimes and the way they're created. There's a lot of information and it's very professional. It kind of ties into what you did later and what we're talking about today is writing your book. Obviously, you're a writer, you know how to write, and so you leveraged that to write something that wasn't in that category of medical writing, per se.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yes. I loved writing as a child, and that was sort of a childhood dream. And it's one of those things where as you get older and you find out the whole thing that you can do anything is kind of a myth. I had "writing a book" as one of my goals, especially once I started medical writing. It rehashed that dream. And when I became a fully remote employee, I noticed that I just didn't feel as awesome as I did when I went to the office every day. Every job, every setting has its stressors, but I started to notice that I wasn't going out as much. I wasn't socializing as much. I was depressed. I became depressed. I felt isolated even more so because initially I was the only remote worker on my team, and everybody else was in New Jersey and New York. That didn't help either.

And this was back before most companies had the infrastructure to support different types of engagement. So, all of our meetings, I would dial in via phone, a lot of times the call quality would be bad. And because my voice doesn't carry very well and everybody starts talking, I would get drowned out. I would just kind of sit there twiddling my thumbs until there was a break.

John: Yeah.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. That's what prompted me. I started journaling initially because I reached out to people and I was telling people, family, members and trusted friends "Look, something's not right. I don't feel myself." And people, we're dismissive because the thought is "You have the dream job when you work from home."

John: Yeah. Well, let me mention the name of the book now before I forget to do that. "Telecommuting Psychosis: From Surviving to Thriving While Working in Your Pajama Pants." You can get that book if it's intriguing, which it sounds to me. I've looked at it and at friedawiley.com/book. So, if you go to her website, you want to look at all the other information if you want to be a medical writer, but then she also has a page with the book on it where you can order it or you can go directly to Amazon. But that sounds pretty extreme "Telecommuting Psychosis." That's a little more than feeling something wasn't just right. So, how did we get to that point?

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Right. Yes, as an obvious disclaimer that it's not an official clinical term, it doesn't show up in the DSM-5 for whatever. But the reason why I chose that title was to call some attention to the situation. And kind of extrapolating from the concept of postpartum psychosis versus depression.

No, I didn't have thoughts of harming myself or harming someone else, but I did reach a point of just extreme mania where I was frustrated. And a lot of that had to do with the fact that nobody seemed to understand or empathize with what I was going through. And I later came to realize that the telecommuting concept, the mental fallout that occurs with it, is something that oftentimes people sweep under the rug.

At the time when I became an overnight telecommuter, unexpectedly, like many people during the pandemic, I didn't have the luxury of having this open forum where people spoke out about it and supported each other. There were very few studies available at the time that talked about it. The pandemic changed that. So, that was also to finish the book because suddenly I had the data to back up everything that I had been saying.

John: Then you applied the skills as a researcher that you did for your medical writing obviously for this book. I'm trying to think what's the easiest way to go through this in not great detail, but what are some of the common effects, adverse effects, and then later we can talk about ways to counteract them or prevent them. And I know you had the eight or nine myths that you talk about, which maybe also relates to that. So, go ahead and just tell us more about this topic and the potential adverse effects of it.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: It's many of the things that I mentioned earlier. The isolation, the depression. And obviously with depression and having a sedentary job and all of that, then you can also expect to see an increase in poor outcomes, poor biomarkers and different things like that. So, LDL, heart disease and things that fall out from that. The lack of vitamin D because you're not getting outside as much or you're not getting outside during the peak hours in which your body would absorb natural vitamin D that has been linked to heart disease, cancer, mental illnesses. We know that people who live in Scandinavian parts of this world are actually more likely to have heart disease and schizophrenia. And there have been studies to show that there's an association between those conditions and the lack of vitamin D. So, those are just a few of many examples.

John: Since you found the research that people are starting to recognize this, are you and others recommending certain ways to counteract these things? Just take it from there.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. A lot of it, unfortunately, has to do with self-management. Acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step, or saying that something's not right. Because mental health still carries a stigma. The pandemic helped to erase some of that, but we have to create a safe space for people to say that they're not okay and to seek help.

So, my goal with the book was to take the guesswork out. Start paying attention. We need to be more self-aware. Are you taking breaks? You need to be taking breaks every 20 minutes or so anyway for your eye health. That's one part of it. And making sure that you're moving, making sure that you are sticking to a plan, make up a plan for yourself where you make sure that you are chunking your time, you're managing your time wisely. And part of that includes the self-care element. Self-care not only in terms of physical health, but mental, because it all works together.

John: It's easy to say of course, but I know for a fact that I should exercise three times a week minimum, probably every day. But it's like you almost have to pick your phone up and put it in there as a scheduled event. And if you can do that, great. And you're talking about the same thing. And if you're at a job that doesn't allow that or doesn't enable you to do that, then you should seriously think about not doing that job and finding an employer that has a little more flexibility and allows you the freedom or a little bit of those breaks. On a 09:00 to 05:00 job, you should have 30 to 60 minutes for lunch, for example.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. And you raise a point about putting it in your phone or scheduling it. And I was serious when I said that. Sometimes it's an accountability thing. Having an accountability partner that can be very helpful. One of the things that I did pre pandemic is I used to drop in on teleworking groups. For example, I used to go to one in particular that would meet up in different places in Austin when I was in the Washington DC metropolitan area. It was during the pandemic. And so, the co-working groups had all gone remote if they were still active, but we still had times where we would work together. And sometimes that would include scheduling little mini breaks where we would do meditation exercises or get a move around scheduling into the breaks, all system socializing, because still some type of human interaction is very important. We're not meant to be isolated from each other.

John: Yeah, absolutely. Let me do this. There's so much in the book that you address in terms of recognizing and then trying to take these steps to prevent it. Again, let's talk directly to the listeners here. You're doing some kind of at home remote work similar to what Frieda has described. Because we tend to ignore how we're feeling, we tend to ignore what's happening to us. Again, maybe two or three of the symptoms or two or three physical findings that you think people better get to stop and think about this and get the book and figure out how to overcome it.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. One side would be noticing that you're not moving around as much anymore and may start to have weight gain. Maybe your back starts to hurt. That's another thing. You have to be your own ergonomics adjuster. You have to figure all of that out. And so, being mindful of that. And you may also notice that if you're not careful, seriously, a few days may go by without leaving the house. Especially if let's say the kids take the bus home or they're driving, why do you need to leave the house? You can have your groceries delivered.

So, making sure that you're keeping track of that. Have I left the house today? Have I socialized outside of my work socializing and thinking about, "Okay, well before the pandemic or before I went remote, what did my social life look like?" Because it's those little interactions sometimes that really add up. And that's something that I really started to miss. And it applies to people, regardless of whether you're introverted or extroverted. I am very introverted. And so, that's another reason why it really threw me off because I was used to doing my own thing and being okay with it.

John: Yeah. I can imagine, I can think of an example like going to the coffee shop. If I'm at home for a week, I would miss that. I don't go every day, but I know when I do go and I am an introvert, I just like to fool around in a sense verbally with the people behind the counter, whatever's going on, mention something. Not political, not controversial. Just to have that interaction with another human being. It's just kind of fun.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. The casual banter. And I even talked about that in the book because I missed that as well. So, then you have to think about, "Okay, yes, this is my new office now, maybe it's not going to be the same experience as what it was when I was driving every day, but how can I recreate some of that or capture some of those elements?"

John: It does remind me a lot about the whole issue of burnout and medical care and healthcare in general. And we can get into a very deep hole, deep in the burnout syndrome before we even realize that we are. And so, this sounds like it's the same thing.

One of the things that I tell my listeners and coaches, mentees and so forth, is that it does make a difference where you work. And some places are awesome to work for and some are terrible because they ignore things like this. Are there any ways to figure out as you're looking? Because a remote job still sounds good. I can be home, maybe I have to be home when my kids get home and or I have an elderly parent I'm helping to take care of. I need to be nearby. Okay, fine. But what can I look for in an employer or let's say if you're a freelancer, it's a little different, but you're still a 1099 employee in a sense. What do I look for?

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. I actually included a little questionnaire at the back of the book to help readers. So, a lot of it starts with the interview process. You need to be very specific and focused about the questions that you ask, making sure you have a really good understanding of that working environment. So, asking what the level of engagement looks like. How do I interact with other employees?

And this may sound obvious now, but because of my frame of reference, it really wasn't. Find out if you are going to be on a team where there are other remote workers. That's important just because of employee conflict, jealousy, animosity, backlash, things like that. Finding out what sorts of infrastructure they have in place that will support remote workers.

And also, there are different things you can talk about to try to get a full understanding of your work. Sometimes the hiring manager will give clues that they maybe are a micromanager or don't really respect work-life balance. So, what I have found is that sometimes the core messaging and the core values that may show up on a company's website may not necessarily align with the role that you're in. It really depends on who your direct line of management is and how much they are working to support that culture. And then of course, if you're able to talk to people within the company offline, and also reviews. So, the nice thing now is if there are so many company reviews that you can kind of do some research and that will also help guide some of those questions that you want to ask.

John: Yeah, that makes sense. And it's related to looking for any job really, to try and get some honest feedback from maybe people that weren't set up to interview you or for you to meet, but that are just there. Like in a hospital you go talk to just some of the nurses or some of the staff or the maintenance man or whatever. Just because you need some hopefully unbiased feedback before you make a final decision.

All right. Tell us again where the website is and the name of the book and all that, because we don't want to forget about that before we let you go.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. The website is friedawiley.com and the book is called "Telecommuting Psychosis: From Surviving to Thriving While Working in Your Pajama Pants."

John: Okay. And they can get it by going directly to Amazon or going to your website.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Both. Go to my website if you can't remember the title and it will take you straight to the Amazon page.

John: Okay, great. And of course, I'll put links in my show notes. I have a last question. If someone who has maybe not done telehealth or telemedicine or telecommuting or remote job, any last bits of advice for them before they take the plunge?

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Yeah. Don't be afraid of it just because I wrote a book about losing my mind. Just know that you have to be your own advocate for your work environment and for your health and that there's no shame in seeking help.

John: Excellent. Thanks. Thanks for that. That's very useful. And I will also remind you, my listeners here in the nonclinical nation, to go to the website if you're a medical writer or a fledgling medical writer because you'll get a lot of good ideas from what Frieda has done. And yeah, pick up the book while you're there.

All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate this Frieda, and hopefully we can keep in touch. Do you have any plans to write a new book anytime in the near future?

Dr. Frieda Wiley: I actually have some children's books in the works, so I'm excited about those.

John: Just let me know. I have no problem sending out a little announcement in the podcast or in my emails if you get those published. So, keep us informed.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Thank you. And thank you for this opportunity.

John: You're welcome. All right. Bye-bye.

Dr. Frieda Wiley: Bye-bye.

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The post How to Go from Surviving to Thriving in a Remote Healthcare Job – 278 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Today we revisit six jobs in which no residency is no problem. With the right experience and preparation, physicians have successfully landed all of these jobs. And for many, residency and not board certification are not required.

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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.

Why No Residency Is No Problem for These Jobs

Your MD or DO degree is valuable. It enables you to compete for jobs with PhDs and PharmDs. Remember, too, that these jobs are open to residency-trained physicians, often at slightly higher salary levels to start.

1. Medical Writing

For physicians looking for flexibility and home-based work, medical writing is one option. With a range of writing types, from blog articles to technical writing, doctors are sure to find something that fits their needs.

Travel requirements are minimal. But this job requires self-discipline. And, unless your writing is based on interviews, interacting with others is limited. As a result, this may not be the career for the gregarious extrovert.

2. Clinical Documentation Improvement

Medicare regulations have caused an explosion of companies focused on Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI). As a CDI professional, you will be trained in the intricacies of translating chart information to billing codes. This work is extremely important to hospitals. It determines whether appropriate payments are received and how quality measures are reported.

You can find these jobs in several situations. These include hospitals, large consulting firms, and as independent contractors. For the last one, working on-site or from home is possible. The job requires working on CDI teams, interacting with physicians, and teaching groups of physicians how to document properly. 

3. Medical Communications

Generally, you’ll be working in marketing agencies that serve pharma and device companies. It’s a great role if you enjoy working in a conventional office with a regular schedule. Teamwork and communication skills are important. These ad agencies are found in most large cities in the U.S.

4. Consulting

Consulting is an excellent career choice for physicians without postgraduate training. Firms sometimes prefer doctors without experience. They can train them to their way of doing things, without the need to break old habits. Depending on the position, it may require significant amounts of travel. It can be very lucrative, though, with opportunities for advancement.

There are many companies to consider if you are interested. Here are some of the largest ones:

• McKinsey and Co.
• Boston Consulting Group
• Deloitte
• Bain and Co.
• Huron Consulting Group

5. Medical Monitor

Doctors with experience in research or on pharmacy committees are suited to a career as a  medical monitor. Medical monitors support research studies and ensure that they are medically sound. They track adverse drug reactions. And they serve as liaisons between investigators and the Contract Research Organization or pharmaceutical company.

The job may involve some travel. However, it is usually less than consulting or medical science liaison (MSL) positions. There are hundreds of companies that employ medical monitors. Here are some of the biggest ones:

• IQVIA
• Parexel
• Syneos Health
• Covance
• Icon
• PRA Health Sciences
• PPD
• Medpace

6. Medical Science Liaison

An MSL is a good entry-level job in the pharmaceutical space. Ideal candidates must be familiar with the regulatory landscape. This career involves travel up to three out of five days each week. The MSL Society and MSL Institute are great resources. And the course Introduction to 6 Nonclinical Careers Any Physician Can Pursue will walk you through the process of finding your first MSL position.

Summary of No Residency Is No Problem

There are many jobs in the healthcare industry in which no residency is no problem. Since the original episode aired, additional jobs have been presented on the podcast. In Pharma, there are jobs beyond MSL and medical monitor positions, such as clinical scientist, clinical research associate, or technical medical writer for a CRO.  In Episode 209, Dr. Marsha Caton described the tactics for landing those jobs. And there will be more on that subject in Episode 214 with Dr. Laura McKain.

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

Links for Today's Episode (Online Courses):

• Introduction to 6 Nonclinical Careers Any Physician Can Pursue
• Introduction to Careers as a Medical Writer
• Build a Rewarding Lucrative Career as Medical Science Liaison

Other Resources:

• How to Shine as a Technical Medical Writer – 155
• Top Reasons to Become a CDI Expert with Dr. Christian Zouain – 077
• Why Medical Communications Is the Best Nonclinical Career – 061
• How to Get a Great Job with a CRO with Dr. Christian Urrea – 070
• How to Thrive as a Medical Science Liaison with Dr. Savi Chadha – 050

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 211

PNC Podcast Blast from the Past: No Residency No Problem

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I decided to bring back some of the classic podcast episodes during this summer of 2021. They are the most popular episodes aired during the first two years of the podcast. And they are inspiring and informative today as they were when I first posted them.

Today, I'm revisiting my solo presentation of six jobs that any physician can pursue, even if you don't have a residency under your belt, or are not board certified. This discussion was first presented in June of 2019, and it was done in response to one of the most common requests I receive via email and in The Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook group. And that's "How do I get that job if I haven't completed a residency?"

If you're in medical school and you're ambivalent about pursuing a residency, or if you did not match and you want to expand your options, today's episode will be very useful. One of the things you must realize is that your MD or DO degree is very valuable and enables you to compete for jobs with PhDs and Pharm.Ds in many cases.

Here's today's presentation.

Let's get right into the six nonclinical careers that will save discouraged doctors. What do I mean by discouraged doctors? Well, I mean physicians like some of you who are discouraged because you have a medical degree, but you're underemployed because you didn't complete a residency or maybe you're discouraged because you're overworked and burned out.

There are at least six careers that I've found in doing the podcast and working with physicians through career change that are open to just about any physician with pretty much any background, because they depend more on the medical degree than on residency training or clinical experience. But don't get me wrong. These are careers that any physician can pursue. And for some, the clinical experience may provide a competitive advantage, but there are a few examples where actually not having the clinical experience may help. And I'll discuss that later, as I'm talking about particular careers.

Now I'm excluding some of the careers such as doing entrepreneurship or starting your own business. They're kind of a calling, they're not really a career per se, and that can go in hundreds of different directions. So, what I'm talking about is more of a formal career, generally working for an organization that builds upon the medical degree. There are situations where the company needs someone with that medical degree and with or without the additional clinical experience. They're really open to physicians in both categories. Because many of you tell me that you'd like to know what are the options out there for me, if I have limited clinical experience, or maybe I did a partial residency or something like that. So that's why I'm focusing on this group of six careers.

Now I want to keep this to a reasonable length today. So, I'm not going to get into the very nitty gritty details, but I'll describe each of these six careers enough to give you a sense of the pros and cons and the personality you might need to go into that. And also, some of the resources you can pursue. I'll describe each of them and provide the tactics and resources and also be giving you a lot of links. And some of those links are to previous podcast episodes, which address some of these careers.

And one more thing before I do that. Instead of going into the specific tactics that are common to all six of these careers, just let me mention, that you should do the following. The first is to have your LinkedIn profile to be complete. We've talked about that before and LinkedIn is a really vital tool as you're looking at pivoting to a new career. So, make sure you've done that. You must begin to network if you haven't already. And you can use LinkedIn, but you should network with med school classmates and others that you may know in and out of the field. So, keep that in mind. Most of these fields that I'm going to talk about have professional organizations, so you should surely take advantage of those.

And speaking of LinkedIn and networking and so forth, there are many of these that have groups on LinkedIn. They may be groups affiliated with professional organizations, or they may be free-standing groups. So be sure to look at that. And you, of course, need to find a mentor, if at all possible, maybe one or two, and follow the guidelines I've given to that before, which is to keep that a relatively informal relationship and don't put a lot of burden on the mentor. But simply tap into them from time to time to help you not make big mistakes as you're pursuing your career. I'm not going to mention each of those, particularly as we're going through the six careers.

Okay. So here we go. The first career is that of a medical writer. Now, this is actually a vast field in the sense that there's everything in there from writing technical papers and white papers or technical jargon for the FDA and for pharmaceutical companies to writing a book for the lay press and everything in between.

Most of the physician writers I've spoken to have done things like writing articles for online medical journals, write articles or content for CME and or be like a medical journalist, where you're writing for an actual published magazine, something like that. But there's a lot of different types of medical writing. And the ones I would focus on personally, would be the medical writing that you can do where you can get started gradually and work your way into it. You want to find out if you really like medical writing. So, most of us know what it is.

For the type of writing I'm talking about, you'd be pretty self-disciplined because you're either going to be freelancing or are going to be working for a company. But the companies on the plus side allow you to do a lot of the work from home because you don't really need to be in an office to write an article or to write a chapter of a book or something like that, or even to write material for the public. But you certainly have to be able to meet a deadline, which means you have to be consistent in your writing. And this issue of having writer's block really is not anything that you can fall back on because just like a ditch digger, digs a ditch, a writer writes. You need to get up every day and write or whenever you're going to be writing.

That's the type of personality. You can be a bit of an introvert unless you're doing the type of writing that involves doing interviews. You are kind of self-sufficient. You're going to be self-disciplined and you are going to stay on deadlines. There's going to be probably little or no travel unless again, you're going to some kind of conference and doing a summary of the conference. That kind of covers the pros and cons and so forth.

The question is "How do you get started?" There are a lot of tactics you can use to get started. I mean, the thing about writing is, and in anything really to get better at it is to do more of it. If you are practicing, then you can do some writing on the side for a variety of different publications. You can have articles published. Of course, they're not going to necessarily always pay you at first. Kevin MD and Medium and Doximity and others will publish your articles. If you look, you can find many of them at other outlets.

But then at some point you're going to have to try to get paid to do that so that you can phase out a clinical practice or leave the nonclinical job you're already doing. Let's say, if you're doing more of a paramedical job because you don't have board certification or a license.

You can learn more about this by listening to some of the previous podcast episodes. And those include my interview with Mandy Armitage, which is episode 22, my interview with Emma Nichols, that's 56. My conversation with Heidi Moawad, episode 63. And then two episodes with part one and part two with Andrew Wilner. Mostly we talked about his writing in the first part of the interview, which is episode 75.

Now the thing is, if you question how good your writing is, you should sign up for a writing course, perhaps through a local community college or something like that. There is a place where you can get some specific instruction on how to not only write better but do medical writing better and even create a business. And that's through Emma Nichols, again, who I interviewed in episode 56, because she has a course. She usually introduces a course through a free webinar, which can generally be found at sixweekcourse.com. And by the way, I don't have an affiliate relationship with her. I just have talked to multiple physicians that have gone through the course and they really enjoyed it. It teaches you how to do the business side of it, as well as the writing side to some extent. And she even has the ability to hire you for some of her business if you're a good writer. So, I would definitely check that out at sixweekcourse.com or just look her up by going to the podcast episode I mentioned.

The other resource I would provide for that in addition to her course is the American Medical Writers Association, which can be found at amwa.org. And as it sounds, there's a lot of resources there for medical writers. So, that would be something to check out. I guess that's what I'll say about medical writing at this point. You can look at those resources and get more into it if it's something that you think you might do. If you're really thinking of doing it, you might want to actually sit down over a period of a week or so, and write three or four articles. The same advice I give to bloggers and podcasters is to create some content before you decide that that's what you want to do and see how difficult it is. And if you enjoy it and if you love it, and if you get motivated by it, then you know you're on the right track.

Okay, let's go to career number two, a career in clinical documentation improvement. I love CDI - Clinical Documentation Improvement. It's something I enjoy digging into. I like learning the rules of the game and sticking to the rules and using the rules to help improve an outcome in a game. So that's kind of what it is. I've always found it interesting that we've had these industries grow out of nowhere in the last 10, 20, 30 years because of the regulations that Medicare and CMS have created.

Clinical documentation has never been a big deal until it was tied very closely to how the hospital or a medical group gets paid. And when I was working as a CMO, I was just intrigued by it because the outcomes that are now publicly published for hospitals and health systems and nursing homes and hospices now all depends how things are coded, because we don't have a great way for actually measuring quality without going into the medical record and the billing record as a primary source of the information. So, these arbitrary rules were created and we found that we needed experts to figure them out. And the CDI world has grown enormously.

It's a world where a physician becomes trained in the intricacies of translating the documentation, let's say in a hospital chart to the actual coding, such as the coding reflects the risk adjustment as needed to get paid properly or not to be dinged or when you're measured on your quality outcomes. Your risk-adjusted mortality and morbidity and things like length of stay and readmission rates, it all depends on coding. So, you have this huge business that's developed and you need someone to talk to the physicians and explain things. And there's a certain subset of those that need to be physicians themselves. It's the kind of job that involves working with others, talking with others. But you have to dig in and understand the rules of CDIs. There is some learning, but there's nowhere to get this kind of training except by doing it.

And so, this is a career that's grown up for a lot of physicians. The opportunities are to be employed by the hospital you're working at as a CDI, but you can also work for a company that does offsite reviews and helps interact with physicians or a company that places you into a hospital. So, there are different options here.

But it's something that can be quite interesting. And there's a great upside, because not only are you improving the apparent quality provided by the hospital that's using your services, but it also improves the bottom line most of the time, because the risk adjustment allows you to bill at a higher level of DRG. So, there's no real school you can go to learn this, but you can learn from an organization known as the Association for Clinical Documentation Improvements Specialists, ACDIS. So that would be a place to learn more, to sign up. It includes a lot of non-physicians in the group. And it also has courses that you can learn and you can become certified.

In terms of resources for my podcast, I had a couple of them. One of my early interviews was with Cesar Limjoco and that was episode number five. And by the way, he has a vast LinkedIn following. He has more than, I don't know, 10,000 - 20,000 followers on LinkedIn. It's crazy. You can find him there, but also you can listen to that podcast episode.

And then a more recent one with Christian Zouain who is someone who has the medical degree, but not board certification. He definitely has successfully transitioned into the CDI role and that's episode number 77. That's what I would do. I would access those resources and look into it. It's one of those things that if you have any previous exposure to the hospital environment, it would be helpful. I think Christian kind of came in through the UM side. He was working as a UM specialist, not a physician, let's say medical director, but kind of similar to a nursing role. But by virtue of that, he was able to get into CDI and has been really able to develop a nice career.

Let's move to career number three, medical communications. Now, this is one where you can actually see that it's open to both types of physicians, whether just the medical degree or also the clinical experience. And it becomes apparent as you're looking for jobs where you'll see that associate medical director roles are given to those who simply have the MD or DO degree or equivalent. And the medical director role is for those that are board-certified and have some clinical experience. But what is it? The ones I'm talking about are related to pharmaceutical companies in the sense that you're working for an advertising agency, which does the promotional materials and the supporting materials and sometimes the educational materials for the drugs of a pharmaceutical company, probably also for a device company, a similar type of situation. It's just a totally different environment. In a way, it's kind of like medical writing, but this is a very specific and specialized area that is open again to both.

You're going to be working on teams here. You may want to be a little more extroverted. You're not going to be holed up at home and working on these things. You're going to work together. You're going to be in an office environment, but there's a great opportunity for advancement. Basically, that's the way it goes. It's kind of a 09:00 to 05:00 job more or less, although sometimes you have to go to different meetings or you might have to go onsite to a pharmaceutical company to pitch something, or to explain a whole marketing campaign. You may be working on materials that are audio-visual. It's really quite advanced these days. It's pretty exciting and fun.

And one of the resources you could look at would be my conversation with Dana Carpenter in episode number 61. Now she relayed that the way she got the job was she had left clinical medicine and had started doing some writing and some consulting, and she had a pretty heavy presence on LinkedIn and out of the blue, one of these companies found her and asked her if she might be interested in joining their team. So, it does get back to the issues I was discussing earlier.

You don't necessarily have to be super creative because they actually have people in these ad agencies that do that part, but you're there as a medical expert. And you should focus perhaps on one type of area that's related to a particular drug or therapeutic class. Your medical degree is there basically so that you can learn new medical areas to expand into. So, you don't have to be an expert, let's say in women's health. You might start out in another area and eventually get that under your wings, so to speak. But you just have to have that experience that you can read and understand and take the information from the pharmaceutical company on the drug and its complications and its indications and so forth and so on, its uses. And then translate that into a way that people can understand.

And then also you're there to make sure that the creative people don't overstep what they're saying about the drug. So that keeps it real, keeps it honest. Dana said it was really such a wonderful type of job. She really loved it. She enjoyed it. And it's one of those that I've found people typically don't leave.

There is a resource that I have, I'll put a link here. It's a visual that I included in the original podcast show notes. And it basically shows the relationships or the parent organizations and the offspring ad agencies that focus on different drugs, different therapeutic classes or different areas of the country. The graphic has over 100 companies.

So, I would recommend if you're interested in looking at medical communications, which combines this scientific background along with writing and creativity and working with a team, then grab that, print it up, look at it, start looking up some of the companies you might look at geographically with something that's within your reach. It is possible to work remotely, but it's not the majority of the way that this works. But it does provide that as an option in some cases.Let's see, resources. That really would be that download. And I would look at those companies. They almost all have job listings or career sections on their website. So, you can just start there and start looking. And again, don't forget about networking, LinkedIn and finding a mentor.

The fourth area I want to talk about is consulting. Now I'm not talking about consulting from the standpoint of starting your own consulting business. And I've talked to people that have done that very successfully, but I'm talking about consulting as a job for a big company. And this is the one area where a consultant, a physician consultant, told me that they sometimes are looking for someone without clinical experience. I think partly it's because they can pay you less perhaps, but they want somebody with that MD degree. Basically, you are kind of similar to the PhDs they would sign up. But also, because they want to brainwash you, I guess, in a positive way. They want to teach you their way of doing things. They don't want you to come in with a lot of preformed ideas and ways of doing things. You know how some of us physicians are when we were practicing for 20, 30 years, how we get. And we want somebody who's going to be a little more flexible. So that's the one place where there may be an advantage to having less experience.

This type of job requires more travel. It depends on the company and where you're located. A lot of these companies are international and in some of them, it might be international travel, but certainly, a lot of it will be domestic as long as you're signing up for a domestic position. But it can be very interesting, it can be extremely lucrative. Let me just give you a list of some of the companies that I'm aware of. And I think these are all referred to as healthcare consulting firms. They're usually more than healthcare consulting firms. So, they have healthcare divisions within them. At least the ones I'm going to describe now. And these are the big ones.

If I were me, I would focus on finding out as much as I could about the first one and finding out what I would need to do to apply for a job. And that would be with McKinsey & Company. It's really considered to be one of the best, and I have no direct relationship with them. I get no compensation for recruiting for them.

McKinsey is headquartered in New York, but it's really around the world and it's an accounting and management firm. It's got a diverse array of healthcare consulting types of subsidiaries and probably employees, hundreds, maybe thousands of doctors around the world, at least. So, I would definitely look them up. There'll be a link to McKinsey in the show notes.

The Boston Consulting Group is another one. It's been around a long time. And it has a healthcare section that does kind of the same thing. There's just so much consulting going on for things like the CDI that I mentioned earlier for utilization management, for bringing on new service lines in hospitals for population health.

The third is Deloitte. I've been aware of them for many, many years. We had many consultations at my hospital from Deloitte. And then Bain & Company is another one. And finally, Huron Consulting Group, which I think bought the Advisory Board and has a bunch of other subsections that address healthcare consulting. But that's just a sampling. I mean, there are literally hundreds. And you can get into little boutique consulting firms.

Again, I actually don't have a podcast episode on this. The resource would be to just look at those companies, look at the career boards, look at what they're looking for and see if it's something that would fit with your needs.

The fifth one would be a medical monitor. This is another one more direct in pharma. The last two involve working for a pharmaceutical company directly or indirectly. A medical monitor is a person that helps to monitor research studies, making sure that the protocols are followed, answering questions, keeping the researchers on track.

It involves some travel. You're probably stationed more at the business and maybe even working from home a little bit and less traveled than let's say a consultant or an MSL would do, which we're going to talk about in a minute.

Usually, the medical monitor has some kind of science background in addition to the MD. So, anything that you have undergrad, or if you have a master's degree in the scientific area, or if you've had any exposure to working with patients or even a committee like the formulary committee or the P&T committee (pharmacy and therapeutics committee) in a hospital. Anything that exposes you to medications and in working with patients and or research would help get a job in this setting.

Now, most medical monitors work for what's called a CRO, a Contract Research Organization, which are the organizations at the pharmaceutical companies. They outsource their medical monitoring too, generally. There are LinkedIn groups related to this. There's no organization that I could identify.

In terms of podcast episodes, there was a conversation with Christian Urrea in episode number 70. Unlike medical writing, you do have to get out there, work with people. You have to work one-on-one with the researchers and their teams. You have to take that information back, to answer questions, you have to be educational and you have to be attuned to regulatory requirements. Maybe if you know a little bit about IRBs or Institutional Review Boards and the strict guidelines they require, that would be very helpful.

Just as a way of providing some resources, there are basically 10 or 15 primary CROs, big ones that hire many of the medical monitors, but you might want to look at these and to get more information to understand what the job description would look like. And the list would include the following. There's one called IQVIA. And then there's one called Parexel, Syneos Health. Company called Covance is a CRO and it's actually owned by Labcorp. ICON PRA Health Sciences and PPD, which is Pharmaceutical Product Development. And Medpace. So, that's eight. I'll stop there. I'll put links to all of those. And like I said, they all should have links to career boards for them.

Again, it's something where if you are interested in research and have had exposure to it in the past, you like working with people, that would be a definite option.

The sixth career would be that of a medical science liaison. Another career in pharma, kind of an entry-level or an introduction to pharmaceutical careers. You can go elsewhere once you've done the MSL job, but the MSL job is open to both board certified and non-board certified physicians.

What is it? Basically, you're interacting with key opinion leaders and influencers. They go by different terms to help educate them and take back information from them to the company about drugs or a therapeutic class of drugs. You are strictly on the education side, you're not promotional, although your activities may result in increased utilization of the drug, but it's more from an educational standpoint.

You have to understand the regulatory requirements, some of the things from the pharma code and the FDA. Personality-wise, if you don't mind traveling if you like getting out and working with people and communicating with people if you can be a little bit extroverted that helps. You're going to be doing more travel than the average job. I would say probably at least 50%, maybe more. So, it wouldn't be common for an MSL to travel let's say three days a week, and spend a day a week at home working, maybe two. And occasionally traveling to the parent company for your employer.

Again, you may not work directly for the pharmaceutical company. You may be working for a third party, kind of like the CRO, but it's a company that would hire MSLs and use them with different pharmaceutical companies. But anyway, yeah, it can be up to two or three days of travel. Now, some of the travel could be local. If you're in a very dense area, you can travel by car. If you're not in such a dense area and you are covering multiple states, you're going to have to travel by air. So, keep that in mind.

I happened to have interviewed many MSLs, so you can hear more from my guest Savi Chadha, it was episode 50, Linda Ho in episode 51. A review of MSL jobs in episode 66 and in an interview with Swati Shah in episode 89. I think you'll find those interesting.

There definitely is a Medical Science Liaison Society, which would be worth looking up as well. And something called the MSL Institute, which is really an online resource. It has been out there for, I don't know, roughly 10 years. And it just has dozens and dozens of articles, many of which are addressing how to seek the MSL career.

I think I'm going to stop there. Those are six careers that are open to any physician really. I could go on, but that is a starting place for those of you who feel frustrated and don't know where you should go. You can start with those six.

As you can see, we've addressed these issues in prior interviews. I've tried to add some value here, so you can understand these six careers and that you have these options. And there's many more out there. I'm learning as we go just as you are.

I hope you enjoy today's episode. Since that one aired, I have had additional conversations with experts in pharma, and there are jobs to be had beyond the MSL and medical monitor positions. You can search for positions as a clinical scientist or clinical research associate or technical medical writer for a CRO using the tactics discussed in episode 209 with Dr. Marsha Caton. I'll have more on that subject coming up in episode 214 with Dr. Laura McCain.

You can find my show notes for today's episode at nonclinicalphysicians.com/noresidencynoproblem.

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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. 

The post PNC Podcast Blast from the Past – No Residency Is No Problem – 211 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

This week Dr. Mandy Armitage explains how to publish your first book. You might recall that she was interviewed in Episode #22 about medical writing.

She returns now to promote her new book and teach you how to self-publish your first book.

Mandy is a board-certified physiatrist, freelance medical writer, and consultant. Prior to transitioning to nonclinical work, she practiced musculoskeletal medicine.

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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 really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Mandy earned her MD from Indiana University School of Medicine. She then completed her PM&R Residency at Carolinas Healthcare System. Then she followed that with a Sports Medicine Fellowship at Emory University.

She was a guest on the podcast almost three years ago to talk about medical writing. In addition to writing, she has worked as Medical Director for several health technology start-ups.

Publishing Her Book

Now she is back doing freelance medical writing and coaching other clinicians.  And she just released a new book called From Clinical Practice to Medical Writing: A Career Transition Guide.

I enjoyed hearing about Dr. Armitage’s decision to write a book. During our interview, she walks us through the major steps she took to publish it:

1. Deciding on the goal of the book and creating an outline.
2. Writing the major content over a period of several months.
3. Engaging a series of editors to review the manuscript.
4. Hiring help with the internal design and structure of the content (including chapters, headings, subheadings, etc.).
5. Putting the files together and in the proper format (pdf, ePub, etc.).
6. Hiring someone to help with the cover design and text.
7. Putting it all together to create the final document in hard copy and electronic format.
8. Promoting the book.

Publish Your First Book

Mandy described the three ways an author can choose to go:

• Traditional publishing
• Hybrid publishing
• Self-publishing

Traditional publishing is a difficult route for a first book. It generally involves hiring an agent and submitting manuscripts to multiple publishers. The publisher then owns the rights to the book and may edit it in any way it wishes.

Hybrid publishing involves engaging a firm that will help with editing and designing your book. The author will continue to control the manuscript. But the publisher will not provide an advance and will limit its marketing efforts.

With self-publishing, the author maintains complete control and will earn more on each book sold. However, the author will pay all expenses, including editing, marketing, and printing. 

If you're driven and you want to make it happen, you can absolutely do it. – Dr. Mandy Armitage

Like many authors publishing a book to a niche audience, Mandy considered hybrid and self-published approaches. She chose the latter and maintains complete control.

Summary

The book is an excellent overview of the material Mandy has been teaching for years. It walks the clinician through these topics:

• The types of medical writing.
• How to prepare to become a writer.
• How to build a freelance writing business.
• The expected income a writer can achieve.
• Answers to frequently asked questions about medical writing.

I encourage you to visit armitagemedicalwriting.com and purchase the book.

If you’d like to learn more about medical writing, check out my introductory course at nonclinicalphysicians.com/writingcourse.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Mandy Armitage's Website
• Mandy's Previous Interview (Episode #22)
• Draft 2 Digital

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

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. 

The post This Is How to Publish Your First Book – 182 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Today I present my thoughts on how to become a successful medical writer.

I am presenting an excerpt from my course on the Nonclinical Career Academy called Introduction to Careers as a Medical Writer. It should answer some of the questions you have about this popular career.

I’ll explain more at the end of the podcast today. But in addition to the video lesson, there are several downloadable audio interviews with physicians who became writers.

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. 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 really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Types of Medical Writing

Medical writing is a broad field that is commonly assigned to one of the following categories:

• Technical
• Journalistic
• Medical Education, including CME
• Patient Education
• Copywriting, including marketing and advertising

Further, medical writers can work as freelancers or as employees. Freelancers will usually require a business structure such as an LLC.

Become a Successful Medical Writer

To become a successful medical writer, you will need to do the following:

• Decide whether you want to be a freelancer, building your clients over time, or an employed writer. Freelancers have more freedom but require more discipline. Employed writers usually have a greater structure to their jobs and more options for advancing their careers. Both types will probably have the opportunity to work from home.
• Select a field of writing. You might be a technical writer for a CRO (Contract Research Organization), a freelance writer for a CME Company, or an employed writer for a health education company. 
• If employed, you may be able to step into a role as an editor, or as a senior medical writer or manager of a writing department.

Summary

Medical writing is a career that often provides the ability to work from home, or while traveling. Your skills can be applied in a variety of ways, for a variety of audiences, and advancement opportunities to supervisory roles are often available.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Nonclinical Career Academy's Introduction to Careers as a Medical Writer
• American Medical Writers Association (AMWA)

Download This Episode:

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

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Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Disclaimers:

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 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 Add Discipline to Creativity to Be a Successful Medical Writer – 179 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In today's interview, Jordan Roberts, PA-C, describes how his passion for medical writing led him to build and nurture a business that helps clinicians generate extra income and advance their careers.

Jordan G. Roberts, PA-C is a medical writer and neuroscience physician assistant. He is the owner of Modern MedEd, a company that creates and markets continuing medical education for premier CME providers across the country. 

He also helps clinicians advance their careers with nonclinical career resources, jobs, CME reviews, and more. 

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. It has over 700 graduates. And, unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. Economist Magazine recently ranked the UT Haslam Business School #1 in the world as the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

By joining the University of Tennessee physician executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills needed to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Jordan received his master's degree and physician assistant training at the New York Institute of Technology. He worked clinically in the fields of neurosurgery and psychiatry for the past five years. During that time, he also worked as a medical writer, podcaster, editor, and member and chair of the Illinois Academy of Physician Assistants CME Committee.

How to Nurture a Business

What started as a side interest and collection of free resources for fellow clinicians, grew into Modern MedEd. The company connects healthcare professionals with:

• awesome CME they never thought to try,
• interesting jobs,
• medical market research opportunities that pay honoraria, and,
• other vendors who produce products that benefit physicians, PAs, APNs, and other clinicians.

He explains how to start and nurture a business like his while still doing clinical work.

If you're planning on getting into this, I would say go for it! It's something that is very fulfilling, and interesting, and… allowed me more freedom in my own life. – Jordan Peters, PA-C

Modern MedEd is a growing resource for clinicians interested in improving their medical writing skills and finding work in the field. Jordan continues to expand the scope of the services he provides.

Summary

Jordan spent several years balancing his clinical work with medical writing and other nonclinical activities. He has been able to nurture a business that grows by identifying and meeting the needs of its customers. And he is an excellent example of a clinician who has transformed a hobby into a sophisticated online business.

Jordan has built a special page for the Physician Nonclinical Careers Podcast listeners. To check that out, go to modernmeded.com/pnc.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Modern MedEd
• ModernMedEd.com/PNC – Special Page for Listeners

Download This Episode:

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

The post How to Make Medical Connections and Nurture a Business – 166 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In this week's Podcast episode, Dr. Jennifer Spector describes how she became a medical editor for a popular online medical journal.

She is is a Board-Certified Podiatric Physician and Surgeon with 14 years of clinical experience. She also spent over 5 years in national leadership positions at the American Association for Women Podiatrists. She’s had a long-term interest in education, writing, and consulting. She is passionate about educating others. As of June 2019, she has been the Associate Editor for Podiatry Today.

She received her DPM degree from the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine. Then she completed a three-year residency in podiatric medicine at Christian Care Health System.

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. And, unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. Recently, Economist Magazine ranked the business school #1 in the world for the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

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

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 needed to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office by calling (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Preparing to Be a Medical Editor

Medical writing and editing are great careers. They consist of a variety of potential jobs that include freelancing or employment; working from home or in an office; technical, journalistic, or educational. And there are positions open to physicians of all backgrounds.

After completing her residency, Jennifer spent several years building her practice. She later volunteered at the American Association for Women Podiatrists. She chaired several committees. Then she held several leadership positions, becoming President of the organization in 2018.

There are so many things that we might have dipped our toes into in clinical practice without realizing how they can apply  outside of actual practice. – Dr. Jennifer Spector

While at the AAWP she was responsible for writing and editing the newsletter and other documents. That experience enabled her to land her position as Associate Editor for Podiatry Today.

Finding Editing Jobs

Today’s conversation with Jennifer clarified the process of becoming the editor for a medical news journal, like Podiatry Today. Jennifer reminds us to develop a portfolio of writing and editing samples to share with prospective employers. She was able to do this while working with the AAWP.

And if you’re looking for freelance writing opportunities, you should look at the portfolio of journals published by the parent company of Podiatry Today, HMP Global. There are 12 journals and 18 Online Digital and Learning Networks under its umbrella.

Summary

In today's interview, we learned what it takes to become a medical editor. This is often a natural step for established writers to pursue.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Jennifer Spector's LinkedIn Page
• Podiatry Today
• HMP GLOBAL

Download This Episode:

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

The post What Is It Like to Be a Medical Editor? – 160 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In this week's PNC Podcast episode, Dr. Kaci Durbin describes her journey from obstetrical hospitalist to technical medical writer.

Kaci received her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Louisville Hospital. She later completed an MBA while in practice, at Southern Illinois University.

In addition to board certification in obstetrics and gynecology, she holds a certification from the American Medical Writers Association.

She was employed at a private practice for 5 years and then transitioned into OB hospitalist work. During her time as a hospitalist, she began part-time freelance medical writing, creating a variety of materials including CME materials, needs assessments, manuscripts, and presentations.

She then worked as an independent contractor for a CRO. This Contract Research Organization later offered her a full-time position as a technical medical writer.

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. And, unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. Recently, Economist Magazine ranked the business school #1 in the world for the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

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

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 needed to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office by calling (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

How To Transition to Technical Medical Writer

Kaci became dissatisfied early in her clinical career. She tried out several nonclinical side jobs while working clinically. And she discovered that medical writing was a popular option for other physicians. So, she decided to pursue a career as a freelance medical writer.

She joined the AMWA and became certified. To help create her freelance business, she took Emma Hitt Nichol’s medical writing course. 

After the course, Kaci started contacting CME companies and landed several freelance jobs. Then she stumbled across technical writing and worked for a CRO as a technical medical writer. That led to a full-time job with the CRO.

I think, once I got a couple clients and I started writing for them, it snowballed from there. Then they would refer me to someone else. Another job would come up.

Now she mainly writes clinical trial protocols and clinical study reports. Kaci enjoys helping to design clinical trials. And she continues to do part-time freelance medical writing through her company, KD Medical Communications.

Resources for Medical Writers

Kaci mentioned important steps for aspiring medical writers to follow:

1. Add a profile on AMWA
2. Including “medical writer” and related terms in your LinkedIn profile
3. Create a web site with examples of your writing
4. Join and engage in pertinent Facebook groups
5. Search job listings on the Look for Zebras website
6. Search for jobs on the Virtual Vocations website

SUMMARY

Kaci determined early in her clinical career that she didn't enjoy that work. She began exploring other part-time jobs. She obtained an MBA, thinking that she wanted to go into hospital leadership. But her early experiences did not support that idea.

She discovered medical writing and really loved it. Then, she pivoted from CME writer to technical medical writer and found her niche. She graciously shared the story of her journey and provided inspiration and advice that listeners will find encouraging.

Download This Episode:

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

The Clinicians Career Cooperative Is Live

This is the ONLINE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS for nonclinical and unconventional clinical jobs and side gigs. It's a FORUM where you can ask questions of experts in multiple careers. We have some of the most influential names in career transition to mentor members in the Cooperative, including Maiysha Clairborne, Michelle Mudge-Riley, Tom Davis, Marjorie Stiegler, Phil Boucher, Mike Woo-Ming, Jarret Patton, Jill Wener, Christopher Loo, Lisa Jenks, Mandy Armitage, and Brent Lacey

There is an automatic Free Trial. So, this is a no-risk opportunity to connect with experts and begin your career transition today.

To check it out, head to the Clinicians Career Cooperative.

Imagine what it will be like 6 to 12 months from now to start a fulfilling career, and leave behind the headaches, long hours, and constant threat of a lawsuit. Joining the Cooperative is the first step on that journey!

So head over to the Clinicians Career Cooperative.

The post How to Shine as a Technical Medical Writer – 155 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.