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.