Some of you might have taken my advice to a premed, and, despite your misgivings, are now medical students.
Being a medical student is an all consuming experience. Consequently, having the time and energy to pursue an entrepreneurial career or side gig at the same time is a challenge, particularly since we need more entrepreneurial medical schools and interprofessional entrepreneurship. That's just one of many problems facing medical schools.
Fundamentally, to be a physician entrepreneur you will need education, resources, networks, mentors, access to experience, peer to peer support and non-clinical career guidance. Here is your career planning guide.
Unfortunately, future doctors are not being educated and trained to win the 4th industrial revolution. How many will graduate with these work of the future skills?
Here are five key traits you should start developing as a medical student.
Some other key attributes are :
1. Mindset :Innovation starts with the right mindset.
2. Talent.
3. Opportunity.
4. Luck.
5. Knowledge, skills and attitudes. Unfortunately, doctors get duped into thinking that getting an MBA gives them the right to call themselves physician entrepreneurs. More often, they are trained to be managers. Here's how to be a physician entrepreneur despite your MBA.
6. Networks and becoming part of the expanding network universe.
7. Mentors and sponsors and knowing the difference and how to find them.
8. Resources.
9. Experience. Here are some tips on how to get started as a physician entrepreneur.
10. Emotional internal motivation.
11. Social and emotional support networks.
12. A sandbox where they can play and experiment with the right leadership, structure and processes.
13. Humility. A learning mindset requires humbleness.It requires a willingness to admit "I don't know".
14. Coming down off the mountain. What got you to where you are now won't get you to where you want to go.
16. Making it personal but not taking it personally.
17. A personal brand.
18. At first, be a problem seeker not a problem solver.
20. Strategic thinking.
If you are a medical student, you might be thinking about quitting or not doing a residency. Think twice before quitting or becoming a drop out doc. It's called physician entrepreneur for a reason.
Here is some more advice about how to progress along your physician entrepreneurial pathway and the things you can do now in medical school and what to consider when it's time to pick a residency if you are interested in entrepreneurship
Good luck and be sure to learn from your inevitable failures. The entrepreneurial mindset is not the same as the clinical mindset. However, much like how clinical judgement comes from mistakes and experience, business judgement results from the same things.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Twitter@ArlenMD and Co-editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship.
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