Facebook is in our faces, we are twittering about Twitter and we're linking in through LinkedIn, so I was delighted to speak with David Toub MD MBA, Medical Director of Gynesonics, to hear his thoughts about the role of social media networking in healthcare.

In this interview (a little over 30 minutes), we discuss his personal journey from happy laparoscopic surgeon and gynecologist to physician business executive, with a detour through business school. He also shares his experience with the increasing power of online social networking -- which helped him land his latest satisfying position. And he gets really fired up when talking about the role of social media and online collaboration in medical education.

While not strictly a physician entrepreneur having started his own business, David functions very much in entrepreneurial mode, finding ways to express his business savvy and creative thinking in his non-clinical roles. I encourage you to listen to the podcast and find inspiration for your own journey beyond clinical practice!

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Dr. Jennifer Lin thinks so.

As a practicing family physician in Tucson AZ, she was close to burnout trying to cope with new mommydom AND maintain her "quota" of patients in practice.

Her plaintive cry:

This way of life went on day after day until my body did something it never would have done a decade before. It literally crashed. The stress manifested itself as frequent colds, neck and low back pain, headaches, insomnia, and chronic fatigue. I was destroying and taking light of the one thing that was more valuable than all the world's riches: MY HEALTH. I realized that I needed to make some difficult choices--either continue to let my job slowly kill me or cut down my hours and take a pay cut. Needless to say, neither option seemed like a fair one to me. Why should having to regain a better quality of life mean that I had to compromise my income?

Being both resourceful and desperate, she embarked on a quest to find another way to produce income to supplement her physician salary and free to up to enjoy medical practice once again. She also needed to create the time and energy to devote to two small kids - a frequent physician/mother challenge!

Listen to Jennifer Lin's story (just under 20 minutes) to find out how she found her perfect solution -- a home-based online business (CarbonCopyPro) with minimal start-up costs, affording her the opportunity to practice medicine part-time without feeling pressure to produce (she can even give away acupuncture sessions on occasion, as her gift back to her patients), and the luxury of a balanced personal and professional life.

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Val Jones MD is one smart, energetic and articulate cookie.

As seminarian-turned-physician, and now part-time clinician and President and CEO of Better Health LLC, Val has navigated so many career paths, it's enough to make one dizzy.

She refuses to be defined by the term "physician" and instead embraces a Whole New Mind approach to her life and work.

In this fascinating 22 and a half minute podcast interview, Val shares her story and her secrets to having fun and success as an entrepreneurial physician. She also outlines her ambition to connect the dots between science, "un-hyped" health education and real ("better") health. She plans for Better Health to be an influential voice in the development of healthcare policy that reflects and acknowledges the reality of the working lives of her constituency -- healthcare providers.

What an opportune time to have her around!

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And if you want to catch her musings and information on Twitter, you can do so here.