I would
say yes he can wear both hats successfully, but not to forget that the
obligations are first towards patients. Being a doctor often means one is
intelligent, resourceful, flexible, have good people's skills, all very useful
in business.
There
are many examples of physicians/doctors who parlayed their clinical knowledge
and personal skills into successful businesses. Few examples that comes to mind
are Dr Prathap Reddy, Dr Devi shetty, Dr Somaraju and so on who founded and
built major hospital chains like Apollo, Narayana and Care hospitals
respectively .
In my
opinion what worked with them was the ability to balance empathy (towards care
seeker) and vision, zeal/passion to make business grow and sustainable. That rope walk
actually differentiates the successful doctor entrepreneur from the rest.
Conventional
wisdom has it that “doctors are lousy businesspeople,” and they should just
take care of patients and leave the business stuff to someone else. In my
opinion, these beliefs are no longer sustainable if doctors are to thrive in
the new healthcare environment. As someone who works with physician
entrepreneurs, I know that doctors have the potential to make great
entrepreneurs. Admittedly, only a small percentage of actively practicing
physicians have an entrepreneurial mindset and even fewer are innovators.
However, it only takes a few innovators to disrupt the system and add
substantial value.
Here
are 10 reasons why doctors have the potential to be terrific entrepreneurs:
1. The
know how to build clinical judgment. The process is the same for business.
Learning from mistakes is called experience. Learning from experience is called
clinical judgment. It’s the same with entrepreneurship. Very few
entrepreneurs have not had their share of mistakes of failed startups. The successful
ones learn from those mistakes and have judgment about pursuing the next
opportunity.
2.
Entrepreneurship is about research and experimenting, something doctors do
well. Doctors do this every day, day in and day out, with their patients.
3.
Doctors are used to dealing with uncertainty. Like businesspeople, doctors make
decisions with incomplete information. Sometimes they have to do things based
on their gut. In fact, they do so more than they would like to admit. Only
about 25-35% of medical decisions are based on scientific evidence.
4.
Doctors have a bias to action. While obtaining a patient’s history, doing
physical exams and tests are a routine part of care, they are all a means
toward an end of solving or relieving the patient’s problem. Doctors are
trained, admittedly sometimes unsuccessfully, to not do things that won’t make
a difference in how they treat patients.
5.
Doctors are excellent at pattern recognition. Doctors basically do three
things: They make decisions, communicate/educate, and do procedures.
Decision-making, whether in dermatology, pathology or multiple other
specialties, relies on pattern recognition skills.
6.
Doctors know how to question, observe, connect and associate: core
entrepreneurial skills. In The
Innovators DNA, Christensen et al. noted the core skills of innovators are: questioning,
associating, connecting, experimenting and observing (credit hannibal).
Doctors have them all.
7.
Doctors know how to assess risk and make on the spot cost-benefit decisions.
Every medical decision is based on the risks versus the benefits.
8.
Doctors can fulfill core entrepreneurial roles. They can be technopreneurs,
market perceivers, managers, and/or investors.
9.
Doctors have access to patients and understand the clinical issues more than
anyone else. They live in a world of market opportunity.
10.
Doctors have the courage to know when something won’t work or should be
ended. Doctors deal with such circumstance on a routine basis when
dealing with patient’s treatment.
So, the
next time someone raises their eyebrows when you tell them you are a physician
entrepreneur, hand them a card with this list on the back of it. Maybe they’ll
offer to invest in your idea.
