Updated PNC Classic from 2022 – 434

In today's show, I share 7 unexpected careers that you may not have previously considered.

This episode will be devoted to sharing with you the most unusual, fascinating, and unexpected careers discovered in the past eight years. The goal is to inspire you to broaden your expectations to jobs that you didn't know existed if the more mundane options don't interest you.

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7 Unexpected Careers to Consider

Here are the 7 careers to learn about from some of our favorite guests.

Founder and President of a Professional Organization

There are hundreds of professional organizations, often called associations, societies, or colleges. New organizations are founded every day, generally in response to a need of a particular group of potential members. And for those involving physicians, the leader of the organization is usually a physician as well.

Examples of such nonprofit professional groups include:

  • American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists
  • Association of Extremity Nerve Surgeons
  • American Academy of Medical Acupuncture
  • American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society

Dr. Lynn Marie Morski, the founder and president of the Psychedelic Medicine Association, exemplifies such a guest. Our interview originally aired in Episode #247.

Online Coach and Course Creator

There are many physician coaches. It is common for a physician coach to add group coaching to their individual coaching business. Some go on to write a blog or produce a podcast or YouTube channel. And some eventually build popular well known online courses.

Dr. Katrina Ubell, who produces the website and podcast called Weight Loss for Busy Physicians, represents a very successful online physician coach. Dr. Ubell's interview can be found in Episode #35.

Part-Time Consultant

This is a tried-and-true strategy for applying your abilities and passions once your practice is well-established. If you have special skills and an interest in helping others with a  nonclinical challenge, you can be a part-time consultant. Once established, you can decide how much of your time you want to devote to each aspect of your professional life.

Dr. David Norris is a classic example of a physician consultant. His side business gradually grew to be the dominant part of his career. My conversation with David is available in Episode #111.

Independent Disability Insurance Broker

Dr. Stephanie Pearson left clinical practice because of her own disabling injury. She found that many of her colleagues did not understand the importance of disability insurance, nor how to select the best policies. So, she decided to assist residents and other physicians understand such insurance and how to protect themselves from the effects of a disabling injury. She is now a successful full-time disability insurance broker.

You may learn more about this in Episode #23.

Chief Medical Officer for a Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC)

As the CMO at a hospital that was heavily reliant on CMS funding, I became very familiar with MACs. But I didn't recognize that MACs employed Chief Medical Officers until interviewing Dr. Meredith Loveless in Episode #165. The work is mostly done remotely, which gives the CMO a lot of flexibility, and it pays well.

Physician Health Advocate

Dr. Nicole Rochester opened my eyes to a whole new consulting opportunity for physicians: health advocacy and consulting, as a physician health navigator. Interestingly, this type of consulting can be provided as a business to client (B2C) or as a business to business (B2B) service.  Nicole explains how to duplicate her approach and obtain her assistance in Podcast Episode #385.

Academic Consultant

It makes sense that a whole new field would develop to assist students who need help pursuing competitive careers. Of course, career counselors have been around for years. But an Academic Consultant takes preparing and competing for highly sought undergarduate slots in high tier universities, and medical, dental, and law schools, to a whole new level. Dr. Shirag Shemmassian explained how he built his business over the past 20 years, and why this might be an attractive consulting job for recent graduates of one of those high powered programs in Episode #134.

Summary

These are seven of the most interesting, unique, and unexpected careers for physicians that I've discovered. They generally pay well and apply your clinical training and experience in new ways.

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

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 434

7 Fascinating and Unexpected Careers for Physicians to Consider

All right, let's get into today's presentation. Several years ago, I was interviewed by Dr. Bradley Block on his podcast called "Physicians Guide to Doctoring". That was about three years ago, actually. And I'll put a link to that in case you want to listen to that. I'll put that in the show notes. But during our interview and after telling him a little bit about myself, I answered a few questions about non-clinical and non-traditional jobs. And one of the questions Brad had asked me was to provide some examples of specific jobs, such as those at the best paying position, the most unique or esoteric, things like that.

And that got me to thinking about devoting one episode to that discussion — that very discussion — about these unconventional, unexpected, fascinating, somewhat unknown jobs that I found very interesting and why, and include links to the episodes for those who wanted to do more investigation into those jobs. And I did that podcast in 2022 where I listed five of those interesting positions.

But what I'm doing today is an updated list of the jobs that physicians are doing that surprised me and why I find them so fascinating and unexpected careers for physicians. And I've added a couple that weren't on the original list. So let's get right into it. Here we go.

First, we'll get to number one in no particular order. So the first is the position of founder and president of a professional organization. There are thousands of such organizations in the U.S., and chances are you belong to at least three or four of such organizations or associations or societies or colleges. They come in all kinds of names. I learned about this when I volunteered as a Continuing Medical Education site surveyor for the Accreditation Council for CME.

As I was doing these surveys — some were remote, some were on site — I met hundreds of leaders of these programs that were providing continuing medical education. And so they were designed for physicians, obviously. And many of the leaders of those programs were working as the leader, the founder, or the president or chief executive. And sometimes they were working as an employee of that organization, of a nonprofit, for example. And some were founders of a private startup CME company. Those are ones that really fascinated me.

Well, these organizations obviously catered to physicians and produced educational content with CME credit. So we'd review the programs, collect information about their compliance. Many of these organizations were medical schools, large publishing companies, hospital systems, but a significant percentage of them were academies, societies, associations, whose members included physicians. And many of them were actually founded and run by physicians. As I said, many were structured as nonprofits, but that doesn't mean that the leader didn't make a good income.

And some of them are pretty small and represent some pretty narrow fields. For example, there's the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists, the Association of Extremity Nerve Surgeons, the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society. And there's, like I said, dozens and dozens, if not hundreds more of these. I think there's a total of about 600 organizations in the U.S.

So get the idea that new organizations are started every day, usually in response to a specific need. And most organizations for physicians will have a paid physician leading them. Now, one guest that really exemplifies this clearly was my guest, Dr. Lynn Marie Morski. And she's the founder and president of the Psychedelic Medicine Association. This is a new organization — 10, 15, 20 years ago, we were not talking about using psychedelics to treat medical conditions — but this has evolved and now there are many, many studies being done and lots of physicians interested in this.

So Lynne Marie went ahead and started the Psychedelic Medicine Association. And if you go to episode number 247 from May of 2022, you can hear our interview where we talk about that. And I kind of try to find out: how was she inspired? What did she do? What were the steps and can other physicians do this sort of thing? I'll put a link in the show notes directly to that and maybe some other examples will be there as well.

So that's the first one. And you've got to be somewhat of an entrepreneur, but this is a little different from starting your own consulting business, which is something I'll mention in a minute.

So the second job I want to mention is that of online coach and course creator, kind of like what I do. What I do is maybe halfway between a hobby and an actual business that I'm running here. But there are many physician coaches and it's quite common for a physician coach to add group coaching to their individual coaching businesses. And then some go on to write a blog or produce a podcast or a YouTube channel. And then some create a community via Facebook or other means to support and teach their clients and to generate sales leads for their services. And some also develop their own online courses or a combination of live and online remote courses.

So this becomes a possibility of a big business if you put it together correctly and if you're successful and you have a big audience. A select few are able to do that and create a sustainable online presence using some or all the previously mentioned online services. And then there's a few who are very successful and generate income that meets or exceeds their clinical salary. I find it inspiring and compelling when I find such a physician because there are many of us out there, you know, sort of struggling to do this. Many of them start as coaches and they move into the online education business.

But I think the best example I have was my interview of Dr. Katrina Ubell of "Weight Loss for Busy Physicians". Now, "Weight Loss for Busy Physicians" is the name of her website and of her podcast. And for years, she offered a comprehensive six-month program called, "Weight Loss for Doctors Only", which was very popular and very successful. In fact, she completely left pediatrics after practicing many years to focus primarily on her coaching and weight loss programs.

And she published a bestseller in 2022 called, "How to Lose Weight for the Last Time". So I don't know what she made on the book, but I think part of the fact that she had such a massive following in her online presence that it probably sold more than your average physician-authored book. Now I know she was successful because I heard Katrina mentioned by the well-known podcaster and course creator Amy Porterfield on her podcast on two separate occasions as one of her success stories. So it can be done.

Another well-known example of this is Dr. James Daly of the "White Coat Investor": book, blog, courses, and podcasts. Obviously a very successful online presence. Now, I do want to mention that Katrina Ubell actually stopped doing the coaching and her "Weight Loss for Busy Physicians" active program. So if you go, if you look her up, you may not find that she's doing that at this time. Whether she'll come back to it in the future, I don't know, but she was extremely successful while she was doing it. And now I think she's moved on to other things.

The other thing before I let this one go is I have to warn you that there's a fairly steep learning curve to getting into this kind of business because there's a lot of moving parts and you have to have an email list and you have to have an online presence and some, you know, Facebook or Instagram or something like that. And I guess one bit of advice I would make if you're thinking of doing something like this is that you try to focus on a proven area of interest in one of the top three, which are the most successful in general. And those are the fields of finances, health and fitness, or relationships. Okay, so Jim Dolly was in finances and Katrina Ubell was in the area of health and fitness and diets. So those are good examples.

And you can listen to my episode with Katrina; it was only episode number 35 of my podcast. And I'll put a link in the show notes to that for your ease of use.

Now, my third interesting, fascinating, unexpected career today is that of part-time consultant. And I, you know, I guess that's not an unusual one because, you know, we all think about starting our own business and maybe we have a side hustle or we have an interest that compels us to get into this.

So I interviewed several physicians doing consulting of one type or another. But I found my interview with Dr. David Norris very compelling because it represents an iconic part-time side gig. Side gig, rather. David is still practicing anesthesia, but during his long career he obtained an MBA and is a certified physician executive. And so he offers business and management consulting services to medical practices and healthcare businesses. He kind of built this business up gradually while he was still working full-time. And he gradually increased his consulting over time as he reduced his clinical hours.

So far he's written at least two books that I'm aware of. The first is, "The Financially Intelligent Physician: What They Didn’t Teach You in Medical School". And I think the second one is called, "Great Care, Every Patient: A Physician’s Guide to Improving Any Process". You know, it's a classic way to leverage your skills and interests. Once your practice has become well established, then you can decide what kind of balance you want to have between practice of medicine and your consulting business.

Another more recent example is Dr. Heather Signorelli from episode 424. Her company provides consultation and education about business fundamentals to physician-run practices. She still practices as a pathologist. But I think she's actually working full time more in an executive role as a pathologist and with this company that she and her husband founded.

Anyway, you can find my interview with David Norris in episode 111. That's from October of 2019. And my interview with Heather is in episode 424 earlier this year, which is still 2025. Both interesting examples.

And one of the other jobs I'm going to talk about in a minute could be considered another example of this kind of consultation, but it's such a unique one I'm going to talk about that separately.

But before we get to that, fourth career is that of independent disability insurance broker. Now, I've only met one physician who is doing this and that's Dr. Stephanie Pearson. And she was a busy obstetrician when she suffered a work-related injury. And then in dealing with her injury and invoking her disability insurance, she discovered that her coverage was not always as it appeared to be. And actually they almost didn't want to cover the injury. Well, based on the excuse that the injury happened while she was working, which was weird because that doesn't, shouldn't make any difference.

Anyway, she overcame that and she became committed to helping residents and other physicians understand the importance of such insurance and what to look for in a good policy that would fully protect them in the event that they, you know, had a disabling injury. And it is a big deal. It's one of those things a lot of physicians overlook earlier in their careers and they need to realize that becoming disabled is just a catastrophe. And if you don't have insurance to replace your income, you are going to be in big trouble.

So she went through all the hurdles that enabled her to become an independent broker and she continues to promote and sell insurance mostly to physicians even today. So in the past few years, I've still not met another disability or life insurance broker who's also a physician. Her partner is a non-physician and she probably has other partners as well since that episode was a long time ago.

Anyway, that was episode number 23 from February of 2018, and I'll put a link in the show notes to that as well.

Okay, the fifth unexpected type of position is from an episode in which I presented someone who was a chief medical officer for a Medicare administrative contractor, also known as a MAC. Now, I'm very well aware of MACs because they were very important to my role as chief medical officer for a hospital, which was—like many—very dependent on CMS payments. And we interacted with these Medicare administrative contractors as we were disputing whether we should be paid or not be paid. We're usually obviously, you know, trying to appeal some bill that we were sending to Medicare.

Medicare doesn't do this directly. They hire these administrative contractors, which are private companies, and they employ physicians. So she was doing that. And it was kind of interesting and fascinating. If you’ve worked in the hospital setting and particularly if you've been involved with utilization management and care management and case management and so forth, then a CMO role with a MAC would be a fantastic position. And it's an administrative position. You know, again, if you're a CMO, by definition, you're usually quite high in the org structure.

She was—Meredith Loveless was the doctor I spoke with. She was a former full-time OB-GYN. She had stop what she was doing because she moved and she couldn't get another clinical job. So that's when she rolled over into this position for a MAC at a leadership level. The job pays well. It's performed remotely for the most part, provides some flexibility. And I remember Meredith telling me that it was pretty interesting and fulfilling and lifestyle was fantastic from what she said.

So you can listen to our conversation in episode number 165 from October of 2020 for this example of a pretty unexpected and unknown position that's out there.

The sixth job was discussed back in episode 127 with my guest, Dr. Nicole Rochester. Nicole is the founder and CEO of YourGPSDoc LLC, a health advocacy company. And her mission is to educate and empower patients and family caregivers so they can get care and effectively navigate the healthcare system, which as we all know, it can be a big struggle.

And she was inspired to do this after having to take care of her late father. And in so doing, she just ran into all of the obstacles and the barriers and the miscommunications that occur when you're trying to help someone with a chronic illness to get the best care. And she used her inside knowledge of the healthcare system to advocate for her dad, and then later for her clients, so that they can overcome the barriers that interfere with timely, effective, patient-centered medical care.

And I've been exposed to this recently with an elderly aunt of mine and my brother-in-law, and it's not getting any better, this navigation. So I think there's going to be an increasing demand for some of these navigators. Some of them are nurses, but the physicians are the ones that work with the most complicated cases and sometimes actually go to their clients’ visits with them to help communicate with their physicians.

And now she happens to be also a nationally recognized speaker, bestselling author and media expert. And so you can find her easily on LinkedIn and elsewhere. So I thought this could be a very fulfilling career for physicians after talking with her. And, you know, it still meets that need to help patients, but without the hassles of electronic medical records and liability and so forth.

And I think the job at the time was being called independent health advocate, could be called health navigator. There's several services out there. Like I said, some are physicians—more and more are becoming physicians that are doing this—and many are nurses. And it's like in a way it's a consulting business that I talked about with David Norris and his finance consulting business. But really to me, Health Navigator is its own kind of thing and it's rewarding work and it's often done remotely.

Now, when I last spoke with Nicole, she was mentoring and teaching other physicians to become independent health advocates. So if you're interested, the quickest way is to contact her at her website at yourgpsdoc.com and navigate to her contact page and just see what she can offer for you if you're thinking of starting something like this. And of course you can go to the show notes and I have a link to the episode most recently just about a year ago. So I'll put that link in there, but it's another pretty interesting and unrecognized career for physicians.

Well, let's see, the seventh and final unique job I want to present today was described by my guest, Dr. Shirag Shemmassian, in podcast episode number 134. Now at that time, I learned there's a growing need for young physicians to serve as part-time consultants and advisors to high school and college students as they prepare to compete for positions in universities and medical schools.

So we've always had career counselors around, but this kind of position is much more intense. And Shirag developed this almost 20 years ago. He's not a medical doctor. He's a psychologist who completed his undergraduate degree at Cornell University and masters and PhDs at UCLA. And he began coaching and advising students to help them with admissions to universities and professional schools back then. And the demand was very high.

And so, in 2013, he opened the Shemmassian Academic Consulting, which now employs dozens of academic consultants and assists hundreds of students each year. And what they do is not only coach and mentor the students that are applying to these universities, medical schools, residencies, law schools, other professional schools, but they help review and edit essays. They advise clients on the courses and curricula to pursue to optimize their chances for admission. He and his colleagues have information about what works best.

And so it was pretty interesting and something I hadn't heard of before—again, academic consultant, I guess is what you would call it. And—but he says though, if you want to do this, you probably should have independent knowledge of the admissions process. It means you probably would be a recent graduate of residency or fellowship or maybe recent medical school graduate, have excellent communication skills, hold degrees from top 25 universities, whether it's med school or undergraduate. And you could do it even while you're still in one of those prestigious residency or fellowship programs.

So you could be doing that before you're even in private practice. You can learn more about that, shemmassianconsulting.com. That's S-H-E-M-M-A-S-S-I-A-N consulting.com. And I'll put that link in the show notes. And you can listen to that episode or read the transcript.

So those are those seven unique, fascinating, unexpected careers for physicians that continue to fly under the radar. I think they're all good ones and my guests have all been very happy doing what they're doing.

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