By Jordan G Roberts, PA-C

As you may have noticed, the NCCPA and AAPA have teamed up to promote PA’s during PA week 2018 with social media and national public relations campaigns. To add to this, I wanted to share and promote more great work done by PA’s in the business and entrepreneurial space.

Many PAs – clinicians in general even – do not feel they were built for ‘business.’ We like patient care as much as we like leaving the numbers to the administrators and industry folks. I think this comes from our training and our culture. In fact, when I was a PA student, someone told me how “lucky” I was that I wouldn’t have to worry about the business side of healthcare.

However, this made no sense to me, so I started poking around and asking questions. You see, my family is made up of lawyers, accountants, and entrepreneurs. There is a distinct lack of relatives with a medical background. With their backgrounds, they have all taught me valuable lessons that I can directly apply to my role as a clinician, employee, and entrepreneur myself.

To me, dismissing the bottom line means giving up job security and leverage. After all, in today’s corporate healthcare environment, better patient care doesn’t always mean better profits. Therefore, by not knowing your impact on the financial health of your organization, you limit your potential impact on the real health of your patients.

With that in mind, I spoke to a PA who has started multiple successful businesses all the while remaining active as a PA leader and advocate. Dave Mittman and I recorded our conversation for the Clinician1 Podcast, just one of his successful ventures. Please forgive the sound quality in some parts, this was our first episode and there were some technical difficulties.

In this episode, Mittman describes the difference between a non-clinical and non-traditional career, reasons why a clinician might choose this path, and tells us about some examples of successful clinician-run startups.

Listen to the show or read the article by clicking here.

Jordan G Roberts, PA-C helps medical education companies create and distribute the best medical education around. He helps students and clinicians improve their clinical game by using his background in neuroscience to teach simple ways to learn complex medical topics. He is a published researcher, national speaker, and medical writer. He can be found at Modern MedEd where he promotes clinical updates, medical writing, and medical education.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.