3 Ways Doctors Can Take Back Their Profession

Doctors have relinquished their power and have been complacent while the medical industrial complex has seized the intitiative, not just in the halls of Congress, but in their examining rooms as well.

Doctors should accept the responsibility for how things are and should do the same for making it right. There are three ways to immediately change course:

1. Change the rules and take a more active political role. The revolution will be won in hearing rooms, not examining rooms.

2. Reform medical education to create 21st Century practitioners. Here are the principles that should guide medical education reform.

3. Give doctors the tools they need to become physician entrepreneurs instead of technicians and managers to add user defined value. Here are 10 reasons why doctors can make great entrepreneurs.

Doctors need to change now because they have to. Global care systems are under more stress than ever and doctors need to respond and recover their rightful place at setting the agenda for change. Complaining won't get us there. Clear-eyed engagement focused on patients will.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org