Nov 13, 2018
I was working full time as a family physician, with a fairly busy practice. But I found myself being pulled into other things. In the early years of my practice, I was asked to join the CME Committee at my hospital, and fill in at the family planning clinic. Later, I was asked to help fill some uncovered shifts at the hospital’s new occ-med clinic.
I was later asked to provide part-time administrative support. This included developing policies and procedures, supervising a physician assistant or nurse practitioner, or doing a walk-through of a local factory for the occ-med clinic.
As the demands on my time increased, I cut back my clinical duties to make time for the administrative ones. I made these changes over several years without any specific plan.
Drifting into Hospital Management
I really enjoyed the management work, and looked for more opportunities to do it. I pursued a master's degree in public health, thinking it would help with my occ-med work. But it wasn’t until 13 years post-residency that I started to seriously consider a full-time career in hospital management.
The tedium of daily practice, increasing paperwork, and declining reimbursements partly fueled my desire to make the career shift. But most of it came from a passion to work in teams, participate in meaningful projects, improve quality of care, and bridge the communication gap between my physician colleagues and the hospital C-suite.
How to Expedite Career Transition
Looking back, the process could have been a lot more intentional. I’ve since learned certain tactics that can definitely expedite your search for a new career. Most of these tactics were originally developed as a way to accelerate business growth, and are often adopted by entrepreneurs. But they certainly apply to career transition, also.
I can think of 5 simple tactics that I could have used, or used more effectively, to expedite my career pivot.
Who Best to Use These Methods?
These tactics are best used once the following conditions have been met:
In this episode, I describe 5 tactics you can adopt that will help to move things along much faster when pursuing a new career or side hustle.
Show notes can be foudn at vitalpe.net/episode060