Working Smart In Medicine For Maximum Income Generation - Part 1

Hoover  19 Mar, 2007  Business Medicine

Note: This post is part one of a two-part series.

You’re a smart person on paper - you got into medical school. You may have done well during your four year stay too, but now comes the ultimate test. Let’s turn away from focusing solely on medicine for a bit and think about maximizing your income no matter what specialty you choose.

Work Smarter Not Harder

Most people don’t like to “work more for less.” Could this be a reason for the decline in interest of the primary care specialties? Without a doubt it is.

Imagine that you’re standing in between two trees. On the lowest branch of one tree is a $100 bill hanging within arms reach. On the highest branch of the other tree is another $100 bill, which is only reachable after an exhaustive climb. Which one would you choose if you could only choose one? Most people would just walk right over to the low-hanging branch, pluck the $100 bill and be on their way. This is not being lazy. This is a very basic example of working smart.

You need to start thinking like this no matter what specialty you choose. Do you want to put in more time and effort for the same monetary gains?

Your Time Has Value

Every minute of your day has value. Most people exchange their time for money in the form of work, and this time is on sale.

How much is your time worth? Would you rather spend 80 hours per week to make $5000 or 40 hours per week for the same amount of money? Those that correctly choose working 40 hours per week for $5000 value their time more than those who don’t care. Above all, you should ultimately do what you love. Just try to make sure that your time is never on sale.

Easier said than done? Not really. Let’s take a look at passive income and how you can turn your sale-priced time into a premium commodity.

Start Thinking Passively

I’ve always been amazed at the number of people who think you can only get paid while at work. This misconception has been passed down from generation to generation, and it’s almost a sin to think otherwise.

The people who think this way (and thus spread the false message) are the same people who only get paid while at work. They don’t know any other way. Don’t let the mind conditioning take you over.

There’s a reason why the world’s top earners are consistently business owners. They have developed passive income streams. Passive income simply means that you are getting paid whether you actually work or not. With my business I get paid while I sleep, at the movies with my wife, while playing video games, or at a week-long vacation on the beach (and I’m not talking about paid leave here). This is the best income to have.

Let’s take a look at an example. Assume that your passion is family medicine. Family medicine is one of the lowest income specialties of medicine. I’ve already mentioned that primary care specialties are seeing massive reductions in the number of students entering those specialties. I believe this is due to decreases in reimbursements which ultimately leads to decreases in compensation, among other things.

For the average family doc, their time is on sale. This is because they are not working smarter. In fact, they are working harder for lower reimbursements. How can we turn their time, which is currently on sale, into a premium commodity?

Stay tuned for part two in this series, and I’ll explain how.

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11 Comments so far »

  1. arenapiso said

    March 20 2007 @ 2:52 am

    oooh, I can’t believe you left me on a cliff-hager like that…please tell me how!!!

  2. Ryan said

    March 20 2007 @ 6:39 am

    Awesome Post! This is the exact message med students need to hear, and the kind I’ve also been working to spread. I’ve tried to get business introduced into the curriculum, start a business “club,” and just raise attention to the issue, but the fact is doctors just don’t want to hear it. Especially the older ones.
    I have a similar post above.

  3. Ryan said

    March 20 2007 @ 6:39 am

    Here it is… http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=4914063#post4914063

  4. Hoover said

    March 20 2007 @ 9:46 am

    arenapiso - I’ll have part two up later tonight.

    Ryan, great post at SDN. It’s great that you’ve been trying to spread the message yet a shame that people won’t listen. Like they say, you can lead a horse to water…

  5. vijay said

    March 20 2007 @ 9:50 am

    good info buddy.. nice to hear that a medico is talking about making money and showing how it..

    Rather we medicos, should develop interest in other fields like business so that we have some passive income which reduces our stress, just that most of us dont give ourself a chance to learn something out of the box which will turn out to be a gift to us.

    I think, if we can study medicine we can study anything and everything on earth.

    http://www.medtape.blogspot.com

  6. Road Kill Ninja said

    March 20 2007 @ 12:54 pm

    Hoover,

    I’m glad you’re posting these articles. I feel like I have a great understanding of how to be financially free. I’ve read the Rich Dad/Poor Dad series, Suze Orman etc. However, my problem is that I have no clue how to set up a business that ensure cash flow passively into my pockets (and nobody elses). Moreover, I have a very hard time envisioning what field this endeavor would be in.

    Maybe med school has killed off my last vestiges of creativity. Any suggestions?

  7. Yan said

    March 20 2007 @ 1:40 pm

    I really appreciate these career posts and am looking forward to more “alternative career” information.
    Thanks for the information!

    “Its Gold jerry! Gold!”

  8. Hoover said

    March 20 2007 @ 1:58 pm

    RKN - Rich Dad / Poor Dad and Suze Orman are great. As far as setting up a business for passive income generation, I’ll give an example in part two of this post series. The key is to find what the market wants (a natural demand), and then to come up with a solution to that need (providing a supply). This is actually another full post that I have planned to write.

    Yan - Thanks man! I hope to be able to find more legitimate alternative career information for you guys. It seems that I kind of rushed the last post and wrote about an ambulance chaser litigation support position! Oops. =)

  9. TJD said

    March 20 2007 @ 3:43 pm

    Medical students interested in making money? What a bunch of sell outs haha. Clearly I’m kidding, or else I wouldn’t have read more than one sentence on this blog before blocking it off my computer.

    This is good stuff. Business should really be required in Med school. It would probably be of more value than the ethics classes that teach about stuff we’re not likely to ever run into in a career.

    I’ve read a few of the Rich Dad books. I think they’re more motivational than anything else. They’re good because they get you thinking, but after a few you need something with a little more substance.

    Looking forward to part 2. I have a few guesses; hopefully they’ll fare slightly better than my March Madness brackets from last year (total disaster)… this years are doing better.

  10. Med School Hell » Working Smart In Medicine For Maximum Income Generation - Part 2 said

    March 20 2007 @ 7:25 pm

    […] post is part two in a two-part series. Please read part one for an introduction on working smart in medicine for maximum income […]

  11. Med School Hell » What People With a Net Worth of $5M+ Do That Other People Don’t said

    May 19 2007 @ 12:01 am

    […] I wrote about working smart in medicine for maximum income generation. The latest article in Smart Money magazine talks about what the […]

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