10 Things Doctors Should Know About Entrepreneurship
/Sick care change is blowing through the industry so it comes as no surprise that doctors are getting more and more involved as physician entrepreneurs. Some see the trend as favorable and welcome that doctors are finally coming out of the innovation wilderness, while others see the trend as worrisome and a conflict of interest that threatens medical professionalism placing economic and personal interests ahead of patient interests.
If you are thinking more and more about the business of medicine instead of the art of medicine, here are 10 things you should know:
1. The definition of entrepreneurship
2. The definition of value and how to create it
3. The definition of innovation and how to measure it
4. Why people are afraid of physician entrepreneurs
5. Why doctors make great entrepreneurs
6. How to resolve the ethics of business with the ethics of medicine
7. Why there is a reason they call it physician entrepreneur
8. What to do next with your idea
9. What are the different kinds of physician entrepreneurs
10. How to get started as a physician entrepreneur and how they develop.
Perfecting the practice of the business of medicine and entrepreneurship is as important as perfecting the art of medicine. The two are complementary, not mutually exclusive as long as the practitioners keep the interests of the patient primary. Doing well by doing good is good, not evil.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org
