GUEST POST from Arlen Meyers, M.D.

Judging by the headlines on their LinkedIn profile and their presence on social media, more and more MD/DOs are innovators, coaches, entrepreneurs and non-clinical consultants. Many are starting or working with biomedical and clinical startups, including a group of medical school graduates, who don’t do a residency or starting their own company.. But:

• They are not trained to do so
• Entrepreneurship in the US has been in a downward spiral in the US for the past 40 years.
• Most startups will fail
• Most startups don’t have money to pay people
• There is an innovation bubble.
• Job security is low
• You have to deal with people who have entrepreneurial psychopathologies are simply untrustworthy.
• Students loan burdens are rising
• Many are not in it for the long run
• There are unrealistic expectations on both the consultant/employee and employer side.
• Most MD/MBA programs should be terminated
• Innovation theater is pervasive.

What is physician entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity under volatile, uncertain, complex and ambibuous conditions (VUCA).. The goal of physician entrepreneurs, is to create user defined value through the deployment of innovation using a VAST business model to accomplish the quintuple aim. There are many ways to do that other than creating a company.

Here are some reasons why you should think twice about being a physician entrepreneur:

1. You are not ready to innovate
2. You do not have the courage to innovate
3. You do not have the mindset to innovate
4. You think that your clinical mindset and your medical degree and training is enough to succeed
5. You are not in a financial position to take the risk
6. You are doing it to get away from someone of some job instead of towards something that is a better fit
7. You do not have a career transition strategy
8. You or your family are not willing to pay the price of successive failure
9. You are unwilling to come down off the mountain
10. It’s not personal
11. You are not ready to quit your day job
12. If you decide to create a company, or work for one, making money for the company is not that important to you.
13. You don’t have the knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies to add value to a business
14. You don’t have entrepreneurial DNA
15. You don’t have a big enough network or know how to manage it as part of building your personal brand
16. You don’t know how to sell things
17. You are a problem solver, not a problem seeker.

Think twice about telling someone to take your white coat and shove it. You will save yourself and lots of other people heartburn and other people’s time, effort and money.

Image Credit: Pixabay

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