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.

Today one of my patients kindly gave me a basket of tomatoes and other vegetables harvested from her garden just this morning. I was touched by her friendly gesture, and surprised because I practice in that urban mecca called Hartford, CT. I’m not sure how many productive gardens there are near me (not to mention that few tomatoes have survived the blight wiping out the tomato harvest in Connecticut this summer).

Reflecting on my day during my drive home, I recalled a wonderful and eye-opening family practice rotation during my fourth year in medical school (1987) to fulfill the AHEC requirement. I lived with a family practice physician’s family in a small central Ohio farming community for one month. Everywhere she went, I went. I scrubbed in and watched her deliver babies. I observed her examining endless patients in her office until early evening many days, helping or assisting when I could, and then went to her home for dinner before crashing into the spare bed in her guest room each night to sleep. Her family welcomed me, as did her many patients.

Maybe Doctors Feel Like Celebrities in Rural Communities (but are too humble to admit it.)

By the end of the month I was recognized and greeted as “doc” by people I passed on the street as I walked to the post office or corner store (pretty cool experience for a new doctor), and I couldn’t help but smile and feel lucky to be there. These patients often brought my hard-working preceptor vegetables from their garden, or a freshly baked pie, or a scarf knitted just for her. Clearly they welcome their doctors into their lives as another family member.

The family practice rotation accomplished its goal of exposing a city boy to rural primary care medicine. I didn’t even think about the logistics and practice management aspects of my preceptor’s practice, so different from others I had seen up to then, or talk to her about her salary. She mentioned she loved the “life of a country doctor” and “don’t consider it if you want to make a lot of money”. Practicing medicine for the sake of practicing medicine, and being such an important part of these patients’ lives and families, was definitely appealing to me.

What Do You Mean You “Want To Be A Country Doctor”?

When that rotation ended, and I returned home to my reality, I was convinced I would follow in that inspiring family physician’s footsteps and hang up my shingle in a small rural town someday. Alas, it was not to be. For reasons you can guess, trite reasons to some degree I’ll admit in retrospect, I was tempted by the fruit of other specialties and ended up denying my dream of a rural primary care practice. It was the right decision for me then, and I enjoy my medical practice now, but I still remember that very special experience in small town America and sometimes even let myself wonder how my life may have been different had I chosen that career path.

A basket of garden vegetables brought it all back for me today.

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.