The medical profession’s silent struggle: Business knowledge matters

Isn’t it incredible that generations of physicians today still do not know how to make money in a professional business way that is easy to learn, implement, and use?

Aside from the fact that every medical school in our nation over the last century has refused to even tell medical students that they would benefit from business education, you’d think that they had somehow been blinded to the fact that all private medical practices are legal small businesses and must adhere to the proven business rules for profitability and success.


ADVERTISEMENT
Even more unbelievable is the fact that nearly every physician during all those years while in medical school and later in private medical practice persisted in believing the myth that arose ubiquitously in the medical profession, about the time the system of trading for payment of medical services disappeared. Thanks to the beginning of paper and coin currency for helping the change along.

“Physicians don’t need a business education to practice medicine” continues to have a permanent stranglehold on physicians and medical school students today. I was finally recognized as a member of that same tribe in the 1980s when I lost my private medical practice for what I guessed were financial reasons.

What the myth statement left out, however, was the fact that practicing without a business education leaves all physicians fighting the “professional poverty” line for the rest of their careers. Does it come as a surprise that the attrition of hundreds, if not thousands, of physicians continues to rise exponentially?

Thousands of other physicians have been sucked into the professional poverty zone because we were either so distracted by over-serving our medical patients or we believed we were arrogant enough to overcome anything. Every one of us has had an experience when not enough income has led to many consequences in our medical practice and personal lives that lead to burnout, or worse.