The Business Side of Medicine

"In medical school, you never learn about the business side of medicine."

How many times have you heard this? My ears are sore from hearing about it. But despite all the harping and all these BiM clubs sprouting out of the ground, my entire Business in Medicine education in my 3 years of medical school still boils down to the following two points:

1. Incorporate yourself so you can pay lower taxes.

2. Consolidate your debt so you can pay less interest.

To me, #1 is interesting, and #2 is a no-brainer. Besides, there are a number of parent-like financial companies out there who will continue to goad you about #2 until you do it (like MD Financial for us in Canada, for instance).

Can that possibly be all? If that's all we need to know, what on earth are they teaching those students for a whole year in the halls of B-school?

More importantly, how will I find out:

1. Appropriate salaries for your MOAs/nurses.

2. Appropriate salary for yourself (negotiating this if you work in a hospital or medical conglomerate, as most city docs will)

3. "Customer service" - i.e. how to be a responsible doctor that doesn't schedule patients for appointments at 8:30 and then see them at 10:30

4. Entrepreneurship - i.e. establishing your practice with your priorities, or even creating and selling products, such as books, or your own line of hair gel, or a new cardiac stent, even. (Hey, I can dream.) This of course would include all the finicky details of entrepreneurship, including marketing, advertising, online presence, oh my god.

Anyways, I think there's a lot to be learned here.

I think I'm going to try and discover more.