PookieMD's Blog: Where Physicians Learn About the Business of Medicine

I wear many hats, and I suppose you do as well.  I wear my small business owner hat when I run/manage my company, ExtraMD, my doctor hat when I play doctor, and my consultant hat when I head off to multiple meetings that seem to define the EHR consultant world I live in.  Of course, I wear my mother hat, wife hat, Girl Scout leader hat, and the hat that seems to get worn the least–the self hat.

My biggest challenge is going from role to role.  It’s hard to switch gears when going from one area to the next. Here’s what I have learned (so far!):

• there is no such thing as balance. Accept that you will spend more time in any given role depending on the importance/immediacy of the project at hand.  (For instance: when I am seeing patients, everything else, barring outright family emergency, comes second.)
• everything is a project, and projects need to be divided in to action steps. 
• define to-do lists by action steps–example “call” or “email” are proper ways to head a to-do list.  “Decide” is not–you have to figure out what to do to help you decide something–do you need more information, to talk to someone, to get financial estimates? Break the item down into clearly defined verb oriented action steps.
• in meetings, I take notes, and on the side of the page, create “action steps” from my notes.  I have an action journal I got from behance that I love.  I then periodically go through the notes and make sure I have acted on the action items.
• put some items on the back burner, and keep a list of these ideas.  Not all ideas can or should be acted on at the same time.
• realize you can’t think of everything.  I have a good friend I talk to about my small business, and several doctors I run things by.  Still looking for someone to talk to about the consulting gig.

Would love to hear about things YOU do in your multiple roles!

This week I am trying to do one thing each day to improve my business.  I like the simplicity: I will commit to doing one thing each day that will further  ExtraMD, my “local locums.”  I have previously talked about marketing to get more clients, and behold! I have a lot of clients!  So, now the pendulum has swung the other way, such that now I need to recruit physicians in to the group.  So, this week, each day, I have committed to taking action. Monday, I put ads on Sermo and LinkedIn.  Today, I emailed physicians who previously had expressed interest  in ExtraMD when we were not as busy.  Tomorrow I will send emails to my social net work to get the word out.  Thursday, I will visit the medical staff office at one of my hospitals and Friday I will put an ad in the local medical journal.  You get the idea.

So some ideas on one thing you could do different to  improve your day:

• put away ONE chart that is laying on your desk
• make ONE phone call that you have been putting off
• look up ONE disease process you need to brush up on
• clean out ONE drawer in your desk
• learn ONE new trick on your EMR
• learn about ONE new drug
• organize ONE file
• declutter ONE corner of your desk
• throw out ONE of the paperweights you got from the drug company, heck, go big throw out two!
• walk up ONE floor instead of taking the elevator.

Enough! Just make one simple change and let me know how it goes.  I’ll keep you posted!