In response to demand, and hot on the heels of our popular May teleclass on Internet Marketing 101 for Physician Entrepreneurs (how to create an effective website!), I interviewed Shama Hyder of AfterTheLaunch for this week's podcast.

Internet Marketing expert Shama has mastered the skill of making tough technical ideas seem easy to understand!

In the podcast, I explore with Shama just what SEO (search engine optimization) is, and why it matters to any medical or physician website owner who wants to be found on the Web through the search engines by potential patients or clients.

Shama generously shares the simpler optimization tips that even non-techies can implement (such as using your best key words and phrases in your content and in your article or blog post titles).

Listen here to The Entrepreneurial MD podcast, and then please go back to The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to comment or ask questions.

Jeffrey Segal MD is a fierce watch dog, always on guard against medical injustice.

As the CEO and founder of Medical Justice, he holds his company responsible for helping preserve the reputations and sanity of his 1700+ physician subscribers, in a healthcare system gone crazy with often frivolous and meritless lawsuits.

Jeff is now a true serial entrepreneur, having started DarPharma, Inc, a biotechnology company in Chapel Hill, N.C., focused on the discovery and development of first-of-class pharmaceuticals for neuropsychiatric disorders.

Why Medical Justice?

As a practicing neurosurgeon, Dr. Segal recognized the pain that lawsuits caused for his colleagues, and then experienced first hand the anguish of being sued himself. His frustration at the lopsidedness of a justice system that made it easy for lawyers to file suits against physicians without much consequence spawned the birth of the ideas behind his company.

Listen to this week's podcast as the articulate and passionate Dr. Segal describes the path his company has taken to date, and how he sees the vision for the business evolving.

And then please share your thoughts at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog.

One enterprising and industrious physician believes it can.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Louis Cornacchia doesn't just want to save your brain or spine; he's wants to save medicine from itself. Frustrated by the diminished power of physicians in the current healthcare system and the increasing disconnect between physicians and patients, he has been on a 9-year journey to find sustainable and effective solutions.

After extensive research and consultation with physician colleagues, patients (consumers of healthcare), attorneys, technogeeks and business people, he and his partners have concluded that the only successful path to a healthcare revolution is via the connectivity and continuity provided by web-based technology platforms.

As a founder of Doctations, Dr. Cornacchia speaks about his journey to entrepreneurship that began with a series of annoying and unnecessary interactions in the hospital around providing patient care, and his vision for the company in this week's Entrepreneurial MD Podcast.

The somewhat challenging concepts are best captured in the company's Mission Statement:

Doctations, Inc. intends to further leverage the power of the Internet to improve the efficiency, accessibility and quality of healthcare delivery and doctor-patient interactions, with an initial focus on Internet-enabled digital medical records (iDMR) and automation of physician offices using outsourced services provided by a distributed, independent domestic workforce. A strong doctor-patient relationship is key to improving the delivery of excellent healthcare. The Doctations software suite allows doctors to use the Internet to establish Centers of Excellence and to help decrease the global cost of healthcare.

Doctors + Other Provider Organizations + Patients = Web Integrated Healthcare Communities

Practicing physicians can immediately begin using the platform for free, while patients and their families can set up their records at www.iMedicalHome.com - want to try it out?

Then please share your thoughts back at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog.

Dr. Albert Fuchs is an ethical purist. That much is clear from our podcast interview today in which the Beverly Hills internist shares his views on his transition from an overworked less-than-satisfied traditional medical practitioner to a streamlined, calm, happy doctor with no immediate plans to quit his concierge practice.

At a patient's urging, he explored the concierge or retainer practice model, discovering its many variations. And realizing that, by cutting back dramatically on his patient load, he could once again become the real physician he had dreamt of being in his medical school days.

Seeking the mentorship of a family member with business experience, he began the transition several years ago by severing ties with the healthcare insurance industry, first with the PPOs and a year later with Medicare.

Paradoxically, he argues that, instead of contributing to the creation of primary care shortages with this model of care, he sees that students considering medicine as a future career are more likely to consider primary care when exposed to the role models of contented physicians providing the care they most enjoy giving to their patients! As opposed to the image many are witnessing today of harrassed, irritable doctors rushing from patient to patient, handling 5 phone calls between rooms, in order to make their "quota".

His advice:

• decide on whose behalf you are truly willing to work and who your customers really are - insurers or patients?
• take the high road and offer only those services and that care that is evidence-based. Keep it ethical - only offer what you would have done unto you!

Listen here to Dr Fuchs's refreshing account of how he chose to re-align with his deepest professional values, in his quest for his vision of an ideal practice.

And then rejoin us at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog here for your comments and opinion!

What does it take to liberate one unhappy urologist from a bleak unending future as a physician group associate?

Answer: A powerful guiding vision.

Dr. Richard Schoor is a Smithtown NY urologist who has already accomplished three great things as an entrepreneurial physician:

1. He has built a solo specialty practice, with the guidance of his own Grand Vision, and is en route to the much bigger dream
2. He has carved out a niche for himself as a male infertility sub-specialist, in a crowded field, thereby turning his potential competitors into a source of referrals
3. He has begun building a web presence and "platform" for his name and practice using 21st century marketing tools, and has already reaped the benefits. He is the author of an acclaimed blog -- The Independent Urologist.

Since I teach and encourage each of these principles, in my eyes that makes him an up-and-coming star entrepreneurial physician business owner!

Listen to Dr Schoor tell his story of how he escaped the "safe" trap of group practice, and opted instead for the elation of independent solo practice (it's less than 20 minutes).

And then please rejoin us at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to share your thoughts and questions.

Andy Oakes-Lottridge MD is an intrepid family physician entrepreneur who is now having as much fun building his practice, Personalized Health Care, as he is delivering medical care -- right in the homes of his patients.

As one of the growing number of physicians with concierge or membership-style medical practices (known to some as "boutique practices"), he opened his doors (actually the doors of his Honda Accord car) almost three years ago after recognizing some significant limitations to traditional group practice.

However, instead of opting for an office-based practice, he has chosen a practice in which 100% of his patient visit are home visits. Talk about keeping overhead down!

Listen to The Entrepreneurial MD Podcast here where you can enjoy his refreshing story and appealingly candid insights about life as a concierge home-visiting doctor in Fort Myers in the Southwestern part of Florida, and then rejoin us at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to add your comments or questions!

Dr Manya Arond-Thomas is a woman with a strong sense of purpose; she's on a tear to help restore humanity and heart to healthcare.

As a physician, Executive coach and Organizational Development specialist, she's long had a love affair with leadership. Having worked as an internal coach prior to developing her own business, Manya Arond-Thomas and Associates, she has focused on working with leaders and teams to produce healthier workplaces.

And in her newest business venture, Heart of Healthcare (soon to be available online), she is returning to her roots -- her passion for improving the quality of life for those in health and human services.

Listen here to her sharing the story of her journey into and out of clinical practice - it's a 20-minute interview - and then return to The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to add your comments!

In today's Entrepreneurial MD Podcast episode, I interview Michael Horowitz MD MBA to discover how he transitioned from actively practicing cardiac surgeon and program director to Founder and President of Medical Insights International  - a medical tourism consulting company.

Hear how Dr. Horowitz's fascination with leadership and management led to his enrollment in an MBA program, and how one concept taught in class caught his attention sufficiently, that two or three years later, he is now living and breathing medical tourism, and globetrotting to foreign places to better understand who his ideal target market is, and what problems they are needing help with solving.

And when you are finished listening, please come back to The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to add your thoughts or comments.

Howard Stark MD's guiding principles seem to be driven by two questions: "What if...?" and "Why not...?"

As a busy internist and gastroenterologist with a curious and observing mind, he questioned why it wasn't possible for his patients to use the Internet to schedule appointments and reserve time with him, when it was so easy to make an airplane reservation online. What difference was there, really?

So starts his story into his latest, almost accidental, entrepreneurial physician venture.

His original goals: make life in practice a whole lot easier AND make a mobile traveling life outside practice possible.

Listen to Dr Stark share how his inquisitive mind and able partnerships have spun a highly useful home-grown web-based interface for his practice into a full-blown business, at DoctorsOnTheWeb.

And I'd love to read your comments at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog, when you're done listening!