Not every physician entrepreneur is raking in the big bucks from his or her venture. Just ask Kirsti Dyer.

Kirsti Dyer MD, MS, FT, FAAETS, NCBF is a highly trained and qualified physician with a passion for easing the grief of loss and bereavement, as well as improving the well-being of her audience.

This passion has positioned her as a health educator and Internet entrepreneur, with several websites: Journey of Hearts, the Violet Heart and NICU Parent Support.

While this may sound glamorous, Kirsti is the first to confess that she has struggled to find a way to derive income from her labors of love. Having given up clinical medical practice, she has chosen to pursue her love of teaching, and fulfill her sense of purpose by helping others cope and learn. Her entrepreneurial businesses are a work in progress!

Listen to my interview with this dedicated and articulate physician at The Entrepreneurial MD Podcast this week (it's 24 minutes long), and discover that being an entrepreneur is not only about making more money -- it's about having the freedom to create something of value and to express what lies deep within yourself. A concept that is completely in line with my own philosophy about entrepreneurship.

And when you are done listening, please rejoin us at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to add your comments and questions.

Dr Ken Corre has found a way to relieve his stress as an ER physician - he writes medical mysteries. And his first book, The Victim Donor, has been published and well-received.

In a prior post earlier this year, I shared a snippet of the interview I had with Dr. Corre about his journey into authorship. Here now is the full interview, to inspire and caution all you wannabe writers.

The road to getting published is bumpy with obstacles - finding the time to write, corralling your personal discipline, selecting an editor in a timely way and opting for self-publication versus finding an agent and publisher. But, according to Dr. Corre, it is also strewn with rewards - the satisfaction of creation, the opportunity to redefine Self, and the recognition of your merits outside of the title of "MD".

Enjoy this week's Entrepreneurial MD's Podcast with a physician who is having some fun outside the ER!

When you are done listening, please rejoin us at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to post your comments.

I had the good sense and excellent fortune to hire this week's Entrepreneurial MD Podcast guest back when I was a medical director at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center.

Dr. Marc Bard is the founder and CEO of The Bard Group, a distinguished healthcare consulting firm in Boston MA. The Bard Group "specializes in helping healthcare organizations achieve extraordinary results" (from their website).

And how true it was. Marc flew out from the East coast once a month to our hospital to provide an evening of physician leadership development. And you can sense how good he was when I tell you that we had a full house each month on a Monday evening for eight months. And the doctors were not coming for the food!

Marc is a trained internist who began post-residency life at Harvard Community Health Plan and fell in love with business, leadership and management. He transitioned into his consulting practice, and subsequent business, by accident.

What is intriguing about Marc's business is how slowly it evolved out of his clinical practice over a long time span. He had no vision or intention of being a consultant and business owner at the outset!

Listen to Marc's delightfully self-deprecating and humorous interview (it's about 27 minutes long) and pay attention to how he describes his growing awareness of what it means to be in business. His is truly an evolutionary and inspirational tale!

When you are done listening to the interview, I invite you to come back to The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to add your comments or questions.

 

Who wants to be famous?

Okay .... perhaps a more relevant question is: Who would like to be even slightly famous - recognized as an expert in your field and acknowledged as the go-to person on your topic of expertise?

My bet is that many of you would. I certainly would!

Last year, I took a great teleclass with two experts on "Growing your Business with Google". At its core, the class was centered on understanding how search engines work, and discovering how, using some inexpensive and easily available tools both online and offline, you could position yourself as a subject matter guru within a relatively short period of time.

One of the class teachers was Steven Van Yoder, author of "Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort", which has recently been released in its second edition.

I was privileged to interview Steve for a podcast this week, and was able to explore on your behalf how, with a little strategic and creative thinking, you too can begin to craft your plan for getting your good name out, and attracting the attention you need to drive new business in through your front door.

The steps he outlines are available to both the small boutique or solo business person or practitioner, as well as the large organization.

Listen carefully to Steve's podcast interview (it's a little over 23 minutes) as he shares his wisdom and expertise about "thought leadership marketing", "cause marketing" and taking advantage of Web 2.0.

Hear how he makes this kind of marketing and PR accessible to even the smallest "shoestring" marketing budget. NO MORE $20,000 consultants with fancy marketing plans!!

And then order his practical and immensely readable book right away - it will take you gently and firmly by the hand, and guide you through the simple steps needed to get going.

And then rejoin us at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to share your questions or comments!

Many physicians invent new devices as a result of their frustration with instruments that don't work well, or problems that must have some kind of solution. This frustration is coupled with the belief that they are the ones who have to find the solution or eliminate the annoyance!

One of the challenges for such physicians is figuring out how to materialize their ideas and then bring them to market.

At The Entrepreneurial MD, not only do I want to learn from successful physician entrepreneurs, but I am also committed to interviewing men and women who may not be physicians but who have much wisdom to share about how to accomplish certain business goals.

I had the privilege of interviewing Jim (James E.) Nicholson last year, and am using this interview to launch the "other half" of my Podcast series, called "Insights from the Professionals".

Jim is a special guy - a serial entrepreneur, an aeronautical and astronautical engineer, and holder of 38 patents (including the Venodyne compression system). In this 25-minute podcast, he outlines how he approached colleagues in healthcare to begin putting his prodigious engineering knowledge to use, to benefit patients. He also shares his experience with securing his inventions and bringing them to market.

Then join me back at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog to share your comments and questions.

What if your next successful business was right under your nose, as a result of solving a problem that has been bugging you? Would you recognize it?

Dr. David Stern is an astute business man who spotted the opportunity for his company, Practice Velocity, as soon as he began fielding inquiries and requests to learn more about the Urgent Care practice management software that he and his colleagues had created.

In this (almost!) weekly version of The Entrepreneurial MD Podcast, listen to my interview with Dr. Stern as he shares how he translated his training as a Certified Professional Coder (how many docs have the distinction of that title??) into a solution for his own urgent care centers. This was accomplished by automating their urgent care center coding through a computerized process. And how this solution mushroomed into a full-blown business providing a much needed practice management answer for urgent care centers nationally.

And then post your questions and comments, or just come and browse at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog!

During his UCLA Masters in Public Health Program, Gregory (Greg) Dorn MD MPH was drawn to many different sectors of the healthcare industry. He also knew that it was up to him to figure out which one best matched his interests and skills.

He set out to do some informational interviewing and serious networking to land his ideal job. And he accomplished this!

What made my conversation with Dr. Dorn so remarkable is that he is one of the few physicians I know who executed a perfect career-finding plan.

Most career guidance coaches and counselors recognize that the most satisfying jobs are not found through Monster.com or some other job board, or even a recruiter. Instead, they are obtained through a careful and highly strategic search process that targets ideal companies, jobs or industries and lays the groundwork for being invited to become a member of the team.

Listen to Dr. Dorn's story (28.5 minutes) in this week's podcast as I explore with him how he turned a very deliberate, intentional search for a fulfilling career into an exciting, entrepreneurial physician opportunity that has allowed him to help grow a small clinical decision support company, Zynx Health, into a clinical business large and important enough to be acquired and then maintained by Hearst Corporation. 

Pay close attention to his job search strategy - this informational interviewing works equally well for physicians with an idea for a business who want to check with potential customers if there is a real need for their product or service.

And then please come back to The Entrepreneurial MD to add your comments and browse!

The photograph on the cover of this month's issue of California Academy of Family Physicians magazine reminded me of a wonderful interview I conducted a while back with Dr Leonard (Lenny) Fromer in my Conversations with Trailblazers series. The time is right to air it for this week's podcast!

I've known Lenny since my days in clinical practice when we were colleagues in Santa Monica, and I am both awed and inspired by his significant accomplishments as a business owner (healthcare consultant) and healthcare politician (past President of the CAFP and current candidate for the American Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors).

Lenny is a highly articulate advocate for improving the physician-patient experience and in this podcast, he shares not only his thoughts as an entrepreneur but also those as a physician dedicated to healthcare reform empowering us as physicians.

Listen to this 31-minute interview and come away inspired by Dr. Fromer's energy and passion for both entrepreneurship and healthcare politics.

When you have to catch a physician for a few minutes on a Sunday morning for an interview, you suspect he's a busy guy.

When he's a full-time clinical practitioner, prominent thought leader and a serial entrepreneur, you're not surprised.

Dr. Garrison Bliss is one such man.

As one of the former founders of Seattle Medical Associates and the current new founder, President and CMO of Qliance, Dr. Bliss has been pushing the envelope for patient-financed business models for years.

What the term "patient-financed business model" simply means is that, instead of relying on insurance as a way to pay for patient care, the providers at Qliance charge a very low monthly "membership" fee of all their patients. And I'm talking LOW! In the order of between $39 and $74 a month, depending on the patient's age.

For this fee, they provide all primary care services, as well as some basic testing (plain X-rays, EKGs, simple lab tests etc).

Critics have gone from scorn at viewing Seattle Medical Associates (Dr Garrison's earlier group that was the second group in the country to test a monthly fee membership model) as yet another concierge practice, to incredulity and doubt that Qliance can survive charging such a small monthly membership fee. Hearing the passion, conviction and clarity of Dr Bliss's thinking may make you believe otherwise!

Let Dr Bliss share his remarkable ideas and story as you listen to this week's podcast conversation with an entrepreneurial physician trailblazer. The interview is 36 minutes long - a little longer than my typical call - but I promise you it is worth your time. What Dr. Garrison is doing for health care is both revolutionary and laudable!

And then over come and join the conversation at The Entrepreneurial MD Blog.

Chris Ewin MD is a man with an opinion. Which is just what you'd hope for, coming from the President of an emerging Association of like-minded physicians.

And a sense of humor, when he describes his Association as: "....the only physician-led trade organization to represent physicians who realize that they have been working for the wrong employer for too long".

As president of the Society of Innovative Medical Practice Design (SIMPD), Chris has helped the association evolve from a loosely affiliated group of physicians and professionals, with a common interest in developing viable alternatives for medical practice models, to a much slicker physician-led organization "promoting a direct financial relationship with patients in order to restore the integrity of the patient-physician relationship".

Chris was quick to point out to me that his own private practice, 1:2:1MD, is a retainer model practice in which patients pay an annual fee based on age for unlimited access to his services - and represents just one of the several clinical practice models under the SIMPD umbrella.

Listen to this week's "The Entrepreneurial MD Podcast" interview with Chris Ewin as he shares his vision for the future of primary care, as well as those of his organization and his personal clinical practice.

Calling herself a "Private Medical Care Advisor", Dr. Delia Chiaramonte is finally reveling in the clinical practice of her dreams.

As a family physician who worked in faculty group and solo settings, Delia would probably still be limping along, suffering from a vague sense of disappointment and disillusionment with clinical practice, were it not for two events that affected her life personally.

Health problems affecting both her daughter and her best friend almost simultaneously forced her to acknowledge that navigating the health care system, even as a health professional, was a big challenge. She realized just how arduous the process was for the average person to be able to arrive at a sound medical decision or treatment plan. 

The idea of patient care advocacy was hatched!

Working in partnership with a like-minded colleague, Delia opened Insight Medical Consultants almost a year ago, and has been steadily growing her business.

Listen to this week's episode of The Entrepreneurial MD Podcast and discover how this articulate, compassionate physician has been able to leverage her medical knowledge and her negative experiences within the healthcare system to find deep satisfaction in her work. And provide a much-needed and highly-valued service to boot!

And if you prefer to read her story, click here for the interview transcript instead.

And don't forget to share any thoughts you might have in the Comments section above.

With whom do most physicians frequently hang out when it is time to relax? You'd probably be correct of you answered "other physicians".

At least this is the premise behind RelaxDoc, a new MySpace-type of social networking site exclusively for physicians.

At the helm of RelaxDoc is serial entrepreneur, former practicing medical oncologist and computer scientist Dr Myo Thant.

Not content with having created the wildly popular and well-regarded Life and Death I and II and Virtual Surgeon simulation games as well as one of the first animated EKG Primer applications in the 80's and 90's, Dr. Thant turned his attention to helping found Chesapeake Cancer Center.

However, he was unable to stay away from his beloved computer, and in May 2007, he announced that his new "baby" RelaxDoc had gone live.

Listen here to Dr. Thant share his story and his vision for RelaxDoc in The Entrepreneurial MD's podcast this week.

Watch out Mrs Fields - you have competition! And it's pretty wholesome too.

My second podcast reveals a delightful interview with Dr. Laura Trice, CEO and founder of Laura's Wholesome Junkfood based in Los Angeles, CA.

I like to think of her as the doc who said no.

Fresh out of medical school, Laura realized that she wasn't cut out for life as a practicing clinician. And faced with a great big question mark about what to do next, she embarked on a scary and intrepid journey to determine what it was she really wanted to do with her life.

How many of you got out of medical school and were not sure you wanted to continue with a residency or medical practice? I have spoken to several young physicians who have been filled with ambivalence, and yet overwhelmed by a sense of obligation and expectation that has forced them to continue despite their lack of enthusiasm. It takes a lot of insight and courage to say "No - this isn't for me" at that stage.

Well, Laura did and now, more than six years later, she is living the busy life of a company CEO, that started at the whimsical suggestion of a close friend.  Listen to her 24-minute interview now, and come away inspired by her wisdom that is quite uncanny for her relatively early years!

If you prefer to read rather than listen, click here for the transcript of the interview.

A quick reminder if you haven't listened to a podcast before:

You can either click on the player button in the little player graphic in the top right corner of the page, OR you can click on the place that says "Direct download : Interview with ......." near the bottom of the page.

Yay, another first! - I am excited to launch my first podcast, having figured out how to do it in about 40 minutes today. This techie stuff is pretty amazing, as the user interfaces have become so sophisticated that even a greenhorn like me can figure it out.

I wanted to open my "show" by sharing one of my favorite stories on a popular topic, if search engine requests are anything to go by! Concierge medicine. Only this is concierge medicine with a difference!

Dr Marty Schulman was an unhappy family physician in an academic group practice, when he paused to figure out what was wrong.

He realized he hated having to start every patient visit with an apology for being late. Or end the visit apologizing for not having enough time to discuss all the patient's concerns.

Sound familiar, anyone?

Several years later, he no longer needs to say sorry - at least not for running late or lacking time. As a solo practitioner in an innovative membership-based medical practice, he can give his patients all the time they need.

Listen to this 25-minute interview as Dr. Schulman shares the story of how he transformed himself from disgruntled doctor to enthusiastic clinician and entrepreneur.

You can download and read the transcript of this 25-minute interview here, if you prefer to read rather than listen.

And please share your thoughts about and reactions to podcasting in the comment section - I'd love to hear them!

Next week, I plan to have a podcast interview with Dr Chris Ewin, president of The Society for Innovative Medical Practice Design and owner of his own innovative practice, 1:2:1MD.