privatepractice.md » Mentoring

Changing the PrivatePractice.MD Mission

Dr. Rich Berning — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:27:50 +0000

The focus of the discussion on PrivatePractice.MD is changing from this point forward. When I first thought about starting a website for doctors in private practice, I planned to develop a team of medical practice experts to teach all of the doctor members useful facts and impart general business knowledge that most doctors don’t get taught in their long education.

Medical practice experts will still be part of this goal, and many of the upcoming podcasts will feature these experts. But I realize that there are many fine brick and mortar and internet resources for medical practice management information available to physicians.

Living the doctor lifestyle encompasses more than patient care, and certainly more than running the small (or not so small) business of a medical practice. Training interferes with the trial and error lessons of the late teens and twenties that most non-physicians experience and learn when they’re young. It’s just a different life education path for most doctors, compared to their non-medical family and peers.

Medical schools are great at teaching young doctors how to diagnose and treat disease. But medical schools forget to teach doctors the other lessons they need to learn about the business of medicine, and how to manage all the other aspects of their lives.

PrivatePractice.MD hopes to fill that void. Upcoming articles and podcasts will reflect this new direction aimed at rounding out a doctor’s training. There will be informational articles, and articles spotlighting successful doctors and innovative medical practices. But I want this site to be a conversation. Please join the discussion. Listen to the podcasts (coming soon!). Leave comments here and on the toll-free comment line (coming soon,with the podcasts). Find the PrivatePractice.MD Fan Page on Facebook. Share your thoughts, hints, and experiences. Ask questions so other doctors and medical practice experts can answer. Time to finish our education. Doctor, heal thyself! It will be good for your health and the health of your patients and practice. It will be true Reform.

Share Your Private Practice Management Tips

Dr. Rich Berning — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:50:10 +0000

For PrivatePractice.MD to become truly useful for doctors starting a new private medical practice, members will need to share their own knowedge and experiences with other members. I would be thrilled to see experienced doctors become mentors to the newly minted doctors. Private practice mastermind groups would be another way doctors and their advisors can learn from each other and have some fun at the same time.

Please add a piece of advice or useful tip that you use in starting or managing your own private practice. Use the comment section to this post. Once enough tips are suggested, they will be organized on the resources page. If you have a dilemma or question, you can ask it here too. The plan for this website is to have a private doctor’s forum eventually, but I will wait until this community grows over time.

See One, Do One, Teach One

Dr. Rich Berning — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:56:37 +0000

All physicians know the adage “See one, do one, teach one” from medical school and residency training. Typically it’s used in reference to some procedure we need to master, like starting an arterial line or putting in a chest tube, etc. While it over simplifies the learning process we all go through, because we usually watch a procedure more than one time before trying it ourselves, it makes the point that you need to do something before you can teach it. Politicians in Washington may not understand the concept, since they seem intent on telling business folks how to run their businesses despite the fact that most of them have never run, much less started, a business. But all doctors “get it”.

Teaching doctors how to start and run a private practice should be accomplished with the same technique. Most of us received very little formal “business” training in medical school. I had a few lectures totaling less than a day or two over 4 years. But during our ambulatory care rotations we see how different practices were organized and run. The “private” practices operated in distinct contrast from the hospitals’ outpatient clinics. Not always better, but clearly different in many ways.

My thought is that the experienced doctors who have started and run their private practices successfully for years become the teachers to the next generation of doctors in medical school and residency right now. These students and residents need you to be their mentors, their advisors, so they can be successful right from the start. Instead of worrying about teaching future competitors, think about it from the standpoint of developing friendships and strong private practice networks. Plus these are the doctors who will take care of you in your old infirm age. You have the knowledge. Please be a mentor and teacher and share your knowledge. Seen many, done one or more, now teach.