L4Z 
Although many physicians may dread the bureaucracy, political maneuvering, and protocols involved in government work, it is incredibly important that physicians have a say in the legislation that affects the health of the citizens of the United States, whether nationally or on a local scale.
Years of experience can be difficult to quantify for physicians, since we have so much training during which we’re technically practicing medicine and gaining experience in the field. Moreover, for those with a career that has involved some combination of patient care, research, administrative work, or other responsibilities, your total years of professional experience will surpass your years of experience in any one of these job areas. So how do you tell if you meet the “years of experience” requirement for a position?
We’re starting the new year off with a bang here at L4Z by bringing you a marathon series of profiles for non-clinical careers for physicians and other medical professionals.
Jobs in medical writing are a terrific gig for healthcare professionals, both as a career and as supplemental freelance work. Rates for writing jobs cover an extensive range, which can make it difficult to propose a rate to a new client. In general, for almost any contracting work as a medical professional, I recommend charging a set rate per project.
Pick an MBA program that looks like a good fit for you and your schedule. Reputation should play a role, but not be the deciding factor. Consider changing jobs, and then getting an MBA, if your employer would sponsor you.
If you’re a healthcare professional who wants more than simply to earn a decent salary by going to work every day, you should have a professional New Year’s resolution. Look for Zebras is all about living your professional life to the fullest and on your own terms. To do that, you need to be proactive.
We tend to get pigeonholed when we’ve been doing a certain job for a long time or have become known for being good at something in our companies or our fields. Great news, though – not only can you overcome this, you can actually use it to your advantage.
If you’ve spent any time exploring non-clinical jobs in medicine or physician leadership opportunities, you’ve probably encountered the job title of Medical Director. You may have noticed that medical director jobs span a wide range of position types, pop up in several different areas within healthcare, and have vastly differing job descriptions and requirements.
Physician leadership development programs can be an efficient way to transition from traditional medicine to a rewarding and lucrative career in the pharmaceutical or medical technology industry. These programs are developed and sponsored by large companies that see the value in introducing early-career physicians to the range of roles in the industry that require the knowledge, experience, and clinical expertise that doctors and healthcare professionals have to offer.
We hear so much about physician burnout, and what to do about it once it sets in. But, really, we should each be designing a career for ourselves that prevents burnout form the very beginning. We need to safeguard against the factors that lead to burnout so that it never even begins to set in.
There’s a tendency among physicians who are considering leaving clinical medicine to feel that they’re not adequately prepared or lacking the appropriate skill set for the new work. Even if you’ve spent your entire career to date in a clinical setting, you’ve acquired and used skills that are vital for a non-clinical career – even one that is only tangentially related to medicine.
By far one of the most popular non-clinical career choices for physicians is a job in the pharmaceutical sector. Pharmaceutical companies need physicians to help them in various areas including designing research studies, evaluating drug safety, and communicating their message to other physicians.
This resume template goes along with our three-part series on CVs and resumes for physicians pursuing non-clinical and alternative jobs. You may want to start out by reading the intro to this set of articles as well as Part 3, which focuses on resumes.
You may be fine with a generic resume for an entire job search, but only if your job search is within a narrow field. If you’re applying for a job opening or to a particular company, you’ll want to a version of your resume that is explicitly geared toward demonstrating that you’re a great candidate for that specific role. But this doesn’t mean you need to do a total resume overhaul every time you send it to someone.
Developing a Perpetual CV will drastically improve your efficiency in applying for medical licenses, filling out job applications, and answering various questions that arise pertaining to your professional history.
Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, a curriculum vitae (or CV for short) and resume are not the same thing. And they are not interchangeable.
This is our three-part series on how to develop a resume, a curriculum vitae (CV), and a Perpetual Vitae™. These articles are geared toward physicians and other healthcare professionals who are pursuing non-clinical jobs or medical jobs that are not your typical “doctor” job in a clinical environment.
Physicians often struggle to find fulfillment in their careers. The underlying meaning and significance of a career in medicine may be clear, but how to make it satisfying on a personal level is a different challenge.
I’m in my second to last year of residency, and really want to travel. Do you have any advice for how to go about this white not going more into debt that I already am, and also not make it super hard to find a job when I come back to the US?
I’m hoping to get a job in consulting, and don’t really want a clinical career. Are there adequately paying jobs for physicians without residency?
