Exploring opportunities outside of full-time traditional practice to build a flexible career in medicine

Chase Johnson: Welcome to another episode of the locumstory podcast I'm Chase Johnson, and we are excited to welcome today's guest, Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid. Dr. Lawrence-Reid is a board-certified pediatrician who has spent her career finding new and creative ways to use her medical degree. She has experience working per diem contracts and locum tenens assignments and has also served in health advisory roles. In addition to that, Dr. Lawrence Reid is the founder of her own physician business called Doctoring Differently. Doctor, thank you for joining us today. We're glad to have you.

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Thank you for having me happy to be here.

Chase Johnson: Awesome, so your business doctoring differently, it has a couple of different components to it. Could you tell us about what inspired Doctoring Differently, and what it's all about?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Sure. So, the core of Doctoring Differently is a fully digital online course in in the online community for physicians who are looking for career options beyond full time clinical medicine. I've modeled this curriculum directly after my own experience of being a pediatrician feeling underpaid, overworked on my way to burnout and how I transformed my life and career. And now I'm experiencing this exciting and innovative and intellectually diverse and lucrative career. So, I've as you mentioned, I've personally participated in per diem, work locums, medical expert witness, independent Telemedicine, consulting medical writing, and more and so Doctoring Differently is the platform that I wish I'd had when I began my personal journey and foray into this world back in 2017. We, as physicians are, are simply not taught about any of these ways to work outside of full-time clinical medicine, and so many of us, just if if it's not taught to us. We think we can't learn it, or we shouldn't know it. And so, I teach physicians how to how to make the transition and how to enter all these new and exciting things and Doctoring Differently, also sponsors the Med move initiative every spring, where we give monetary gifts to fourth year medical students to help them move to start residency.

Chase Johnson: That's really neat. So did you tell us a little bit about your path? Did were you working in a relatively like traditional clinical setting before doing the doctoring differently, and that just like you said on your way to Burnout.

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Sure. Yes, I didn't know another way. So, I finished Residency in 2014, general pediatrician, I began working in a pediatric emergency room and I initially envisioned a career potentially in an er in a pediatric ER, but after a couple of years it became clear that this was just not how I wanted to spend my life. I'll say there was, you know, I experienced all of the things that I think a lot of physicians mention as their reasons for seeking other types of careers in that I had no autonomy, no control over my schedule. I, you know, pediatricians for your listeners who don't know, pediatricians make the least of all physicians. We go to Medical school and have the same loans. Medical school costs the same for all of us, but it became clear that there was no real upward trajectory of my career. In this very conventional way of working, and I was in an emergency room which meant I was working nights, weekends and holidays because emergency rooms never close. So it was an additional strain. But I'm very grateful for that experience, I'll say. Also working in an ER, I was seeing my future. I was working shoulder, to shoulder with colleagues who were you know, 10, 20, 30 years ahead of me, and you know, when it’s the middle of the night in the ER all the barriers are gone. You're just getting pure, unmitigated truth from your colleagues about how they're feeling about everything. So that was a helpful glimpse into my future career. If I stayed and so in 2017, I recognize that that I needed to do something new, and I'll say it all. It all started with a broken, a broken chair. If you want me to expand on that. So, in most emergency rooms you know, there's a small back room. There was a small back room for physicians to write their notes. You know we are instructed and taught how important our notes are for billing, for the hospital, to get paid for everyone to get paid for healthcare to run, and all relies on physician charting and notes. And we had this tiny little room, 2 desks, 2 chairs, 2 computers. I walk into my shift one day and the available desk chair computer the armrest on the chair was broken off completely. This is an office chair, and it was broken, and there were shards of metal that were jutting out of where the armrests used to be. And you know there's a little sign on the computer that says, you know, administration is aware that we're working on it. And so, I assume someone was at office, Max, or wherever you get to our office shares. I assume someone was there that moment, getting us a new chair. Okay, I did my whole shift. I'm holding my elbow close to my side, so I'm not impaled by shards of metal and finish my shift. Finish my notes, go home, come back the next day or a few days later, whenever my next shift was and I walk in and there was a diaper wrapped around the shards of metal, and so, instead of a new chair there was. There was a diaper wrapped around metal, and I submitted my letter of resignation that night. Yeah, I mean, you should be definitely better taken care of than that.

Chase Johnson: Half day fix, I guess, is what I would say. That is, wow, amazing. Okay, well, II guess that's quite the inspirational story. Based on your experience? What other things are you seeing, as far as like common reasons that physicians would be looking for opportunities outside of their traditional roles in medicine? if someone doesn't have that share experience, what other?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Well, I'll say the chair experience is like was the was the last draw, you know. It was built upon years. Of the other things I mentioned lack of autonomy, but like the end of any type of relationship, it's always that last little thing that gets you that wouldn't have gotten you couple of years ago, but it gets you now. But and I'll say I've spoken to a number of physicians who have similar stories, whether it's the elevator that hasn't worked in months, and their office is on the eighth floor or something. You know, I've there's always a version of that. I'm learning with a lot of doctors. Another reason I'm seeing physicians leaving or curious about leaving full time clinical medicine, you know we can, we can say, burn out all day. I feel like it's a word that we're kind of throwing around casually, but specifically stating the details of burnout, particularly again, the lack of autonomy. You're talking to people who are brilliant, who are so smart, and we feel caged, we feel caged. And that's just that that doesn't have a lot that doesn't work out long term. I think we're reaching a breaking point as well. Because we're realizing we're we have access to the Internet. We can see things. We have social media. So, the things that maybe 20 years ago physicians certainly would never have known are possible. They know now. So, there's curiosity about the things we are seeing, even tangentially or coming up in conversations or on the Internet. You know, we can Google search anything. But the lack of autonomy is a real big one. Having felt like we have absolutely no control or power over our destiny, over the course and trajectory of our careers. That is, that is huge, and we don't have the power to say, you know what I'm ready to go part time, I'm ready to go 75% time and instead, we're told just no, no, you can't do that. And I know I've been doing this long enough that when I hear Physician saying that I clutch my char a little bit like, how are you?How are you? How is someone who's not a physician who's not doing direct, patient care, going to tell me how often and how I need to do patient care. This is my life. So that is really reaching a breaking point. We've, of course, now lived through a pandemic. So, I think people's priorities have truly changed. We recognize that. I think too many physicians have learned that you know their institutions don't value them the way they thought they would be valued. And money is always a consideration. I will say, as I've modeled my platform over. After my own experience I recognize I think I had an inkling that I could make more money outside of this path. This job people were telling me was the best job I'd ever have. I knew that there was more out there, but I couldn't even quite think about the money. I'll say that I couldn't quite think about it. At the time when I even quit my job, I was making $125,000 a year full time. I was, had almost $200,000 in debt. I was living in a one-bedroom apartment, in a major high cost of living, living, living city, renting and driving my 10-year-old corolla from Med school. My beloved, I loved her dearly, but that was my life, and I saw that it. It didn't appear that anything was going to change anytime soon. And at that time, I just knew I needed to pay the bills I had. But I needed to be treated better. It was about it was about respect. It was about just again feeling that I was in a closed space that I didn't. I didn't want to be in anymore, and also with the knowledge that you know I'm a physician, I can always find a job. I can try something new, and if it doesn't work out

I can go back. It's okay. And I'll tell you how many we don't. We don't think that way. We are very much creatures of habit and predictability. We don't think that way. We don't want to get off the path and lose our spot. We don't wanna walk away, and people question why so? But truly we have a safety net that you know few people have in that. So, was that the mindset when you gave your letter resignation? Did you have kind of a plan in place, or was there? I'll figure it out. Yeah, it was a combination. So again, I knew only clinical medicine. So, I knew that I could go I was full time in a full-time contract with benefits and all the things that you know I was told I had to have, because I got my first job at 30 years old, so I felt like, you know. Let me hurry up and get this retirement going. I knew that I couldn't let not understanding it or not having a great plan for my retirement. I mean I was 33. I was, you know, relative. It was early career at the time. Just thought, you know I must go. I will figure it out along the way. So, I went per day. That was my quote. Big plan. Not a big plan. It was just. I have bills, and no one's going to pay them but me. And I can, you know, as a per diem, it's an hourly rate. I can just, you know, work as much. You know enough to pay my bills. My bills don't know that it's coming from a per diem job versus a full time official, Doctor Job. No one cares but I just needed that. II really was operating out of survival at that point. You know what. I'm just gonna start and see where it goes and know that I have a safety net. And you know, I've heard of this. I've heard of that. I'm gonna try it cool. And it was trusting myself. And it's working out.

Chase Johnson: That's awesome. What a cool, unique process. So is there a typical process and advice that you use for helping physicians navigate a big career change like similar to what you went through?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Yes, I I'd say the very first thing for all the things I talk about with physicians in terms of you know the per diem, locums, expert witness, consult aesthetics, Botox fillers, all the things that doctors can do from any specialty. The biggest thing in the way I start my course is by giving them permission. Permission is a huge part of this. And that sounds so basic, or maybe granular. It sounds very, very simple, but I can't tell you how many times physicians come back to me and say I needed permission. I didn't realize I did, but I did, because we are. We truly are groomed and trained to need permission? You know we start. We start our medical training in our early twenties right when many of us are entering medical school at 22 years old, 23 years old, you know, when in theory we'd be the most, you know, liberal with our careers the most risk taking. We are shunted into this very hierarchical, patriarchal institution. We are broken, and we are built up the way to fall in line. We're built up in a way to follow orders to make sure we are, you know, on our P's and queues. We are the best. We are competitive. We are applying to the best Residency programs and the best fellowships, and we will get the best jobs. We will have the most research. We will do the most teaching, and that doesn't go away. So, after you know, we enter in our twenties, and we are done with the training in our thirties. That's how that's just how we operate. And so and we need permission. We are so used to applying and proving ourselves and having to prove our worth. And so we are looking for these institutions that have trained us to then turn around and give us permission to leave, and fiscally, that it will never happen that does not. We are created to generate profits for this healthcare industry in this country, which is a trillion-dollar industry, or probably more, and it rests on our labor entirely. Yet we are made to feel so disposable, so dispensable, that, you know we have to listen, and even things that don't are right for us in our careers and things that we see are not right for patients. We don't have any controller power to change. So I give, I know I kind of diverged a little bit, but permission is a huge part of it. I can't stress enough. How many physicians just need another physician. I'll say we, we need it to coming from inside the house. Another physician to say it's okay, you can go. You want to try something new? Go for it. We need permission, and the biggest thing I do is give permission.

Chase Johnson: Yeah, it's really interesting. You call that out. On one of the recent podcast episodes we recorded for locumstory. We were talking to the Happy MD. He talked about how a lot of physicians are just like you just mentioned conditioned to kind of be in this mindset of pick me mentality. Pick me, pick me, and they don't really think about like what they want for themselves.

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: He nailed it. That's exactly that and again, I tell doctors it's not your fault. It's you are not deficient, but we internalize. We're not used to failing, or we're not. We don't. We don't do that. We don't like that, and we don't like feeling not smart, so I'm introducing new concepts in terms, and oh, consulting! Oh, I don't know how to do that. Well, guess what? Most people don't know how to do a job before they do it. I recognize we've gone to school for a long time to do a job. Yes, please know how to be a surgeon before you are a surgeon. Thank you. But to be to be a consultant, you don't need to get an MBA. To do that. You don't have to, you know. We think we need more training. I need to go get my MBA. I need to do another fellowship. That's our currency, that's what's most valuable to us is that. And that is just another thing that keeps us doubting ourselves and feeling like we're not good enough without more training and more education.

Chase Johnson: So yes, yeah, awesome. I think that leads to a follow up question. So, it sounds like a big barrier might be getting that permission and maybe breaking the mindset of of kind of what you've been conditioned to be thinking any other big barriers of helping physicians kind of make that transition?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Yeah a big, a big one is thinking that there are rules to this career. This is, this is the same. This is all linear on the very same thread is we follow rules. We are rule followers okay, we do not like to step out of line. We do not like to put rules, and we have been taught and trained that there are rules to this career. You go to medical school; you do the get to the best Residency. You do the best fellowship, and you get the best job, and you stay on this academic career where you're trying to get to the next level. Maybe you'll get there in your fifties if you've done enough teaching and research and papers and posters, and attended enough conferences and given enough lectures and you're on a, you know, some sort of other private but fully clinical prep path. And so and so I think the rule. Following is a big thing. In the same lesson I teach. You know you have permission, and there are no rules. There are no rules to this career. Rules there are none. You have a safety net. You can try new things. You can come back if you want to. But if you do, and ultimately, you know, I think when enough physicians know that they have options outside of full-time clinical medicine. They'll be more vocal about making the changes that need to be made inside of it, and speaking up and being loud and being aggressive and being obnoxious about it. But we don't. We stay in line if we, you know we're not gonna rock the boat if we can't, if we if we think we'll drown. We're not gonna rock the boat. If we can't see the shore or the sand, we're not, we're not gonna start shaking this thing, but if if I tell you, hey, the shore is right there, you can get out of this boat and walk to it. You'll probably feel a little bit more confident and speaking up about the things, because I want physicians to be able to do full time clinical medicine. But we just have no protection right now. We are very much at the mercy of these giant hospital corporations’ insurers. There are just so many people that we do not know, making a lot of money off of our labor, and then leveraging more labor to make more profits off of us. And again, ultimately, is this about the patients. It doesn't look like it because they are suffering. No one is protecting either of us. Yet this is the healthcare system in the United States right now. So, there are just, I think I again have left your original question and point. But I've arrived in a different one. And truly knowing, doctor teaching doctors that there are no rules, and we are not monoliths, you know. We can be a physician, and you can own a dance studio. Right? You can live any kind of way, and there are absolutely. You can leave clinical medicine for a few months, few years, you can come back to it. You can write. You can be an expert witness. You can consult. You can work in tech like there are. No, there are absolutely no limits. And it it really makes us all, I think, better people and better doctors a few different branches. There it leads into another question. We kind of talked about how you got the inspiration to you know, kind of a explore. Your own career path.

Chase Johnson: Can you tell me about you've mentioned local tenens, per diem, you’ve mentioned expert witness. Have you done all these things, or what is your like makeup look like?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Yes, I have done all of the things, and more, and I teach about things that I haven't quite done, but I've talked to enough experts about, and that's actually how Doctoring Differently, somewhat started. I'd say personally again, I'm a pediatrician, and so I felt that I was the most limited of physicians. I mentioned this at NALTO last month, but in my training, I mentioned I graduated from Residency in 2014 locums was a bad 6 letter word. No real doctors did locums. We all started getting the emails and the text. And the and how did they find me, I think, paging sometimes it was a lot, but I'll say this are at least for me. I was, you know, pediatrics we're female dominated, that's first of all. But unfortunately, I think there's just a lot of feeling. You know we are non-confrontational. The messaging I got around locums was, don't talk to the recruiters. Don't pick up the phone. They're very pushy. They're very aggressive. You're gonna end up in a contract you don't want in Arkansas, and nothing wrong with Arkansas, please. But again had lived in Massachusetts, and I was training in New York, and then I lived California. So, Arkansas was always very far from where I lived states in general, I would say, I'd say they always want to send you to a state that begins with an A. There's anything wrong with States. To begin with. A. They just are very far from where I ever lived. But it was. It was no real. Doctors get full time jobs; real doctors stay in their communities. They are academics. They care about the children in the community where they live, and they just you know, they are martyrs, and they are working all the time, and nights and weekends and holidays, and they're rounding on the babies on the weekends. That was the messaging. It was, you know, no one, no one. We no real doctors do locums but I again once I kind of the once the diaper on the chair released me. I'll say II really just thought you know I'll try it. What's the what's the downside? If I don't like it, I won't do it again. So in in the fall of 2017. I did my first locums assignment. It was in California, so I didn't have to get a new medical license. And it was just one week in September, I think. One week in October there was a little inpatient, outpatient, but it's a really good experience. I was based in San Diego, and it was just a kind of very small kind of mountainous community. Very different for this, you know, city girl who grew up outside of Boston. So it was different. But Iit was really enjoyable, and that was it was very short lived. They only needed, you know, like I said, a couple of months of coverage. And then it. It ended. So it was, you know, I was still able to pay those bills. And I met a friend of mine. Her father was a retired cardiovascular surgeon in in Iowa, and he was retiring, and we met him at A. We all were at a dinner party, and he said to, you know, few of us. How have you all ever thought about doing Botox and fillers? And you know we looked at him. We're like, excuse you. We are real doctors, know. And he's like, okay, cute. But he said, listen, I did. I added it to my practice in rural Iowa, and I killed, and my only regret is not doing it sooner. Words kind of stay with you for a little bit. And so, after over a year of separating and thinking about it, I, you know, started. I just took a class, you know. I took a course, and I think that you can try things. You can just see if you like it. So, I did. Took a course, took another course, kind of enjoyed it. It's procedural, people are happy. It's lucrative, it's cash only and then I started a Botox, you know, like a boutique mobile Botox filler practice. So those are like the 3 things that in the first couple of years out of out of full-time clinical medicine that just it started to just be an exploration. My! I was already, I think I never once made less money than I made, never once never! It was only like it was equal, and then it was more, and it's never been less. You can't tell me that it's not possible for again for this pediatrician starting as I where I started, pediatricians make the least easily the least of every specialty. So, I'm II absolutely Shi. I never shy away from that point that if a pediatrician can do it, there is absolutely no excuse that any physician and of any specialty can do it, too.

Chase Johnson: That's awesome. Yeah, I I'm hearing a few things here in relation to this next question that I'm gonna ask, what do you enjoy most about locums work? And I'm hearing that it's lucrative. I'm hearing that you can kinda see new places and have new experiences. It sounds like you're you're kind of also incorporating new procedures or new ways of practicing and anything else that you haven't touched on that. It is kind of a highlight, as far as locums goes.

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Yes, going back to, I think the very first point I made about autonomy. I enjoyed that I can choose. I can choose it. I can choose where I go. I can often choose my schedule. I've gotten to a place where I can often kind of choose my schedule at the beginning. It was, you know, we need you for these dates. Can you do this block of dates? And so I've done that in the beginning. But now I've moved with a lot of the sites I work at. It's they're just they. They work around my schedule, which is a really nice feeling. So the that autonomy, that feeling of I can put my months together, I can. I can put my months together. I can put my life together, and I can construct it the way I want. I wanna block off this to go home for this trip, or to see that one or this birthday or that wedding like I can do that and I'm not forced to work long term in something that isn't working. So yes, the autonomy and the control over my own life and my own destiny. I think that is human. It is human to want that into need, that at some point on some level. Yes, it's negotiable. I can't tell you how many people in academic medicine are on. A lot of these large HMO systems have cannot negotiate their salaries. I mean, I was actually told at the end of Residency, don't even try to negotiate your salary. It's not possible for doctors. I was told that, and that was not, that was not true. I should not have been told that. But my program to my assistant program director said those words to our whole class, and you know in retrospect anytime. I tell that story people get. You know they are flummoxed, and they are just gasp. And I say, you know II get it now, truly, but from her perspective she had never left academics. She probably had tried to negotiate salary and was turned down and it probably really hurt. And so, she was trying to save us that rejection when really she complicated so many of our relationships with money, with salaries, positions. And, you know, kind of led us to the path where many physicians, particularly female physicians, particularly pediatricians, are chided and reminded. Oh, no! Why are you asking, why are you thinking about money? Good doctors don't care about money, good doctors, about patients in their in the children? And then that gets us right back in line. Say, okay, I shouldn't ask for too much. I'm being greedy. I should just be grateful for what I have. But ha! Again, there I did. I took another detour. But things I enjoy about locums, the autotomy, the freedom, the control, the fact that things are negotiable. And yeah, and as such, able to negotiate high salaries and high rates, I really enjoy that.

Chase Johnson: That's awesome. Let me ask. I'm also going to jump around a little bit. So, with Doctoring Differently when you take on a new client, would you say it's relatively prescriptive like, would you say, hey, I think, based off of what I'm hearing from you should try per diem, you should try locums, you should try, or is it kind of just like expanding their helping expand their narrative for them?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: So, the Doctoring Differently course, which is again completely digital but there are live components, group sessions, one on ones with me. But the course itself is 9 hours of recorded content for physicians. I like to say, this is a liberal arts, education for physicians, looking to leave full time clinical medicine to know exactly how. I'm not just giving them a list of things they can do. I'm showing them how they can start each one from where they are.I expose them to everything I thought at the beginning, you know, I said, should this should I make this an ala carte type of curriculum where they can pick like? Oh, no, I just want to learn how to start a med spot. No, I just wanna learn how to consult. And it's like, No, no, we're we. Also, we think we know things we don't know. Sometimes we we've not been exposed to it, but we already think it's not, for it's not for me. And it says, and so that's when I knew at from the beginning, I just said, let me know this is one course. You're getting all of it together and if you buy it if you pay for the course, you will pay attention, and you'll watch all of it, and at the end you can decide whether it's for you or for not or not for you. But I'm not gonna give physicians, you know, I know us, and it probably human nature in general. I was gonna say, I don't know humans. I know doctors, we are humans. But I need as the way as physicians think, I knew I wanted them to just have mass, broad exposure. So, and I and I'll say we're really smart people, so many physicians they'll just watch it all, and they'll immediately say, I wanna do that. I'm gonna stop that. I don't really. I mean, we'll do a little, you know, kind of gentle, just discussions about things, and I'll make suggestions. But you know, we we know ourselves. That's the thing. It's like, you know, we? We are smart people who know what we like, what we're good at. And again, I give permission to say, guess what you wanna try. It started. You don't like it; you don't have to keep doing it. Try something new, and I think, just I there are some doctors. I just give them the tiniest little whiff of permission, and they are gone they are! They're gone! II hear from them a few years later, and they are doing everything, and I'm so proud. But they just needed a lit. They needed exposure and a little bit of permission. And guess what, if if anything, if anything, physicians are good at it.

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: I imagine we could talk about how I did. You asked. But I didn't actually say how I started this or why? Exactly. I started it, you know, 2017. I started doing all of these things by my, you know myself out of survival, but also curiosity. It appealed to my personality. And then, in 2020, you know, small things were happening in the world, and at the beginning I thought. You know, okay, what does this look like for me? I am very much on the edges of of a conventional physician life. I was doing locums. I by that point I was actually doing locums regularly. So I did just those first couple of assignments in the fall of 2019 and didn’t really go back to doing locums regularly until 2,019. So, at that point I was doing locums at least one once a month, for a few days or a week at a time, and so by 2020,I was doing that. That was, you know, paying my bills. I'm still doing per diem, I still had my little Botox filler practice. So then a pandemic. And I'm thinking, okay, what does this look like for me? I do not know. I am over here. I assume my friends and colleagues at these major large institutions and hospitals, they will be taken care of because they are in the belly of the bees, like they will be, they will be cared for, supported and then well, you know not to spoil anything but that really didn't happen. And so, by the end of 2020, I’m you know, talking to this friend or trying to, and I'm saying, Hey, you can do other things, you know I'm shocked. I was shocked. I was doing so well. Still doing kind of all of the things I was doing. I rolled back on the Botox. You don't really need too much of that, although people were desperate, for all their zoom calls wasn't, wasn't to freshen things up. But I was. Everything else was going really well. I'd wrapped in some independent telemedicine in there I was thriving, making more money you know, at my locum side, you know, big props, my locums facility. They, I think, 3D printed a visor for me, and a mask with my name. Yeah, you know what? So that contrasted to you know, physicians who had no support right. Their hospital just kind of shrugged like we ran out. I don't know I felt I felt very supported and cared for at my local kind of throughout the pandemic. I'm trying to tell my friends who are drowning and burning out and miserable and watching, you know the worst, watching death, and having but them, they themselves working more than ever, and having no increase in salary, no protection, no PPE physicians. Some physicians in San Diego just had 20% taken out of their paycheck. Just said mope, we're not. We're cutting all of your salaries by 20%, and there's no recourse. There's nothing you can do about it. I was watching a lot of that. So I was calling for, you know, telling these friends and colleagues, hey, you can do new things. And they weren't really, you know, they're just like, namely, there you go again. There you go. I was like yes, here I go. It's great out here. And I sat back and thought you know. if I kind of put my knowledge into a course or a class that is again our currency. That is how we absorb and digest information, not just our classmate, our old colleague on the phone telling us we can do something else. I, if I make this in course in a class that probably will be at least more digestible and more legitimate, a more legitimate way of learning. And that was the beginning of the idea that I could teach physicians in a very structured, organized way. About again, starting with permission, starting with no rules, starting with tangible things they can do to get a job, get head shots get on LinkedIn like how to find a job, how to negotiate, how to structure a Cv. How to start locums, How to Talk to a Recruiter, how to negotiate, how to resign all of these things. We are simply not taught, and think we The things that apply to quote unquote, the general population don't apply to us, and we never had anyone. Another physician take the time to teach us and that was the kind of the origin story for doctrine differently.

Chase Johnson:That's really awesome cool. II love it sounds like it's really fulfilling to you. And I think that big success from the outside looking in so congrats. Switching gears, a little bit, I guess it's kind of on the same line. But in your opinion, what do you think the future looks like for physicians? Do you think that you're gonna see more? I'm gonna say, breaking the career escalator mold of what you were seeing and kind of operating similar to you? Or do you think it's gonna be tough to kind of break the mold and get off of that escalator?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: I think that physicians will only continue to look outside of full-time clinical medicine for work moving forward. I think that there are so many factors that are all coming together at the same time and moving that we've we're on the other side of a hopefully on the other side of a pandemic, and physicians have seen how unprotected they are from these institutions that you know we were so loyal to. I think they're recognizing more of. No, II have to look out for myself. I have to pursue or create my own career here, and I can't necessarily go on what I've been told my whole life. And at the same time we have, you know, younger millennials and Gen. Z. And they are built differently. They are absolutely they, are we? They are not. You know, our parents. Generation of the you know you go to school; you do one job for 40 years you retire. Everyone does other things now, almost so many people have multiple different interests and multiple different things that they want to do or can do or try are curious about, and physicians are no different. Whether they, you know whether they are in medical school or residency. You know we're again not monoliths. We have other diverse interests and so I think, as that generation sends through medical school, and through their training I think they will be even more of a large push. I will say, from my platform, I am hearing from medical students in residence more than I hear from any other demographic they really have gotten to the same. They have gotten arrived at my conclusions much, much sooner than I did I? You know I started medical school in 2,007, and there was no thought of doing anything but full-time clinical medicine that II could tell from anyone around me. But this generation again, they've got social media. They are searching and looking, and they don't care about Nest. They don't necessarily care about the titles, about the professors, about the law. I believe good doctors and will be excellently trained doctors, but they are gonna be about their lifestyle and maintaining that outside of the hospital and their identity outside of medicine. And they're gonna want their as they should, as we all free time and ability to negotiate and move around and try new things. I think that it's generational, but it's not a bad thing. We should all want that, and I think when we all find it we again we'll find a happier career, and I think, be better for our communities and for our patients.

Chase Johnson: I really agree with all that for sure. And then finally, what's what does the future for Doctoring Differently look like?

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Thank you for asking, man, I've got big, big dreams and goals for Doctoring Differently. I want to be, as I started off, saying, the resource I wish I had. I kind of wandered around in the dark at this point for 6 years, made some mistakes. Trial and error, you know, and I like to think I created the blueprint accidentally, for how to navigate this career, and how to start from one place again. Low lowest, paying specialty, educational debt to where I am now, and showing as many doctors as possible that it is possible. So, it this to be a collaborative space for physicians. Again, I am breaking down that innate competitiveness between us, that cageyness that we oh, I've got this good thing, or I've got this good salary. I don't want to talk about it like breaking all that down and recognizing we're so much stronger together. I, in the next month we'll be releasing a free Mini course about malpractice insurance for physicians.

That is a topic that is never mentioned in our medical training. Not one time are we taught how we are protected, how we're liable, what malpractice looks like what any part of that it lives in our minds. Trust me, it lives in our minds, rent free at all times with any patient interaction, but we but it. We have no knowledge or understanding about any of the framework or policies behind it. So, in the next month, Doctoring Differently will be releasing a free mini course taught by me in 3 parts on the website for any physician, medical student resident who wants to learn more about their malpractice and what that looks like. But in the future, in the big future I plan to host conferences, you know, being able to have physicians who do this work who do different things, who are experts in these different types of diverse careers, for physicians to be able to talk and interact and collaborate together, to be a big kind of fun medical conference. Not that all medical conferences are fun, but to be one that says, you know, what? Okay, research isn't your thing? Okay, like, that's fine. Do you wanna maybe go to this breakout session for physicians who are interested in climate or political activism, or physicians who, you know, provide abortion, care, and what are looking for more support, especially in States where that is under attack, can we get actual support for physicians? And like in a real, meaningful way? And so that's what I want. That's what that's the future. I wanna, I wanna have offices in different in different cities, so that physicians can have a place to to collaborate, to learn to rest. Hospitals are not being built with position lounges anymore. There's no rest. There's no place for us. All spaces and hospitals are used for patient care to generate income. But you know, II want doctors to be able to have a space, and a place to learn and to rest, and to, and to be awesome. Cool. Well, I love the vision. I'm excited to see where it goes.

Chase Johnson: Yeah, yeah, absolutely anything else that you want to touch on that we haven't talked about today before we wrap up.

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: I don't think so. I think, just for any physician who's listening, who's curious, no matter where you are, in your career. If you're a resident, if you are early career, mid-career, late career, maybe you're retired. I'm now talking to retired physicians who are curious about their options after they've, you know, maybe left clinical medicine, or it's it's time to leave after, and so many years and decades. I just want doctors to know that they have permission to try new things, and there are no rules, and they can do whatever they're curious about. They're capable of learning about it. They're capable of taking small, calculated risks, and it's not a leap. I talk to physicians who think, oh, I’m not ready to take the leap out of clinical full time. Clinical medicine. But it's not actually a leap. It's a step you can start with small steps, small, calculated, calibrated steps and taking enough of those steps, may help you arrive in the career of your dreams.

Chase Johnson: Excellent! Excellent! Wow, what a great sign off there, Dr. Lawrence-Reid, thank you so much for joining the podcast. Today, it's been really awesome speaking with you. You can learn more about Doctoring Differently by visiting, doctoringdifferently.com as Dr. Lawrence Reid mentioned, they have a bunch of free resources and information about upcoming webinars and enrollment is now open on doctoring differently. And then also, we're gonna drop some links in the show notes here to all of your social media channels, including Twitter and Instagram. Hopefully, we can get some folks to track you down. And yeah, learn from the best, I would say. Of course. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid: Bye.