The Major Obstruction to the Success of Every Physician's Private Medical Practice Business Career
About My Medical Practice Business Expertise
“Every physician’s ultimate success and career destiny in private medical practice is determined not from lack of knowledge or shortage of information, but rather from rejection of information.”
The weight of worry and the often unrecognized and frequent instability of our financial challenges create misery for most physicians in our nation. My struggle to maintain an income level in my private medical practice, which never came near my expectations, was depressing.
After 18 years in my OBG private practice, I lost my practice primarily because of financial reasons. I knew that I had done something wrong, made a few major mistakes that I couldn’t relate to practice income, and never could determine the cause of that failure. Criticism of myself daily didn’t help. I had built a very good practice and it was a pleasure to practice my specialty. I had no business management or marketing education at the time because my medical school never made such knowledge a part of medical practice education. I believed deeply in my ability to manage my medical practice, even though I was business ignorant.
The cause of this situation resulted in my decision to uncover the cause no matter when or how I could do that.
Employment jobs, something that I hated, were my only way out until I quit medical practice in 1999. I had all the stressor symptoms that never disappeared until my wife Linda insisted that I get out of the game of medicine. The mental and physical symptoms disappeared, but my promise to myself didn’t. I had no retirement fund, so we lived with relatives, supported by our SS checks.
After trying to earn extra income with 3 failed online businesses, it became clear that knowledge of business tools was critical. So, I dove into reading business books and watching business seminars on the PC. I could never afford a real business education.
One day on my PC, I found a website, Glazer-Kennedy Inner Circle, that offered business, marketing, and entrepreneurship education at prices that I could afford. It turned out that I had joined an organization run by Dan S. Kennedy, a world-renowned business and marketing expert. I didn’t realize he was my way to find the cause of my medical practice failure and business ignorance.
My business and marketing education was far better than any college or university course. But, more importantly, a large part of the education was derived from many business millionaires who had started with nothing and built their fortunes using the business principles Kennedy was teaching.
Since 2004, my business knowledge learned from Dan Kennedy’s organization has continued and risen to the cutting edge of business and marketing education. It continues today.
Soon after I read most of the recommended business books (Dan Kennedy has written over 80 books on business and marketing) that well-known experts in business and marketing have published. A list of the 114 business and marketing books that are the foundations for all businesses today can be found in my book— “The Wounded Physician Project” –second edition 2021.
The truth was exposed…
During my business education, I began researching the cause of my practice failure, backed up by the business education I was rapidly learning.
I read all the articles and news concerning the medical industry and filed away everything I found related to physicians’ medical practice problems and healthcare factors affecting physicians. It was obvious that I was not alone. Thousands of physicians nationwide have been leaving their medical practices for many reasons over decades. The most common reason was inadequate practice incomes.
The primary cause seemed to be burnout, being forced to see many more patients daily, increasing disappointment with their practice restrictions, and many others. However, it was quite clear to me that underneath all the physician’s stressors that have been increasing for decades, there had to be a primary core cause for everything happening to all private practice physicians that no one had thought about.
When I did a little deep thinking, looking at all the troubles hounding most physicians, it seemed reasonable that it had something to do with income/money. After all, wealthy physicians exist within the same medical practice circumstances and environments we all face and rarely complain about these stressors. Why?
That triggered my concern about what medical schools were teaching across our nation. I knew my medical school never offered anything related to business education. I researched the AAMC (American Association of Medical Colleges) information to see what other medical schools offered.
It blew my mind when I discovered that no American medical school had ever offered a business education to medical students. Then I discovered that none of those medical schools mentioned the value or benefits of business education to medical students, purposely—a secretly camouflaged and destructive action that has resulted in the gradual destruction of private medical practice that is still occurring today.
My contacts with medical schools about this issue remain unresponsive. Any approach to medical schools today to uncover the reasons is left to one’s imagination. Medical schools today refuse to offer any form of business education—which is an education weakness and a direct cause for the government takeover plans of the medical care industry, medical school education, and the medical profession itself.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” ― Aldous Huxley
Because of the persistent and defensive posture of most physicians, medical school scholars, and medical education pundits, I have created a formidable online medical education membership website that covers the solid business education medical schools refuse to do themselves. Some medical schools are testing out some ways to do that. But I doubt it will be implemented for another ten years or so.
This website provides affordable, easy-to-understand, and easily adaptable business tools, medical practice advice, and numerous detailed bits of medical practice smart troubleshooting tips that aren’t taught in medical schools.
The most important learning experience for physicians on this website is the WHAT and the HOW aspects of implementing the right business tools that accomplish each physician’s objectives the fastest and with the most productive outcomes. Additionally, physicians will understand how to maximize their incomes most efficiently by applying the right tools to accomplish that result.
You do not need to spend hours memorizing, reading a thousand books on business, or paying $40,000 for a two-year MBA education that I consider worthless for physicians. Actually, there are over 250,000 business education books listed on Amazon.
The most exciting part of all this business learning is based on the fact that any physician will have the ability to pick out one of two methods, tools, or processes discussed on the website to accomplish miracles for their medical practice business.
You do not have to learn all the strategic business tools and options to skyrocket your practice income. Even one marketing strategy and one or two office management tools can often be sufficient.
This is the situation and time when you finally will see and understand the truth about what business experts and I have been teaching physicians for decades—and very few have listened.
Website Address… (About to be launched online soon, 2023) www.managementmedicalpracticebusinessandmarketing.com
This website teaches at the cutting-edge level of business education for physicians. New medical business education articles will continue to be added to the over 154 already on the site—resources galore.
This website is the only website created to benefit all physicians in the benefits of business education online today.
This website was created specifically for physicians in private medical practice. But can be used effectively by anyone in any business.
All medical school students in the USA, when they discover that there is a digital means to obtain a business education, even though medical schools don’t recommend a business education or want medical students to “waste” their time learning about the business of medical practice, will have a step up on most other practicing physicians.
This website is the only online website that provides business education to physicians who care about using business tools that all successful business owners use.
“The rude awakening for those who struggle through college, medical school, internship, and residency only to realize too late that their medical school failed to teach them the one element of private medical practice that enables them to reach their maximum potential in skills, medical knowledge, and value to each of their medical patients.”
I have two objectives in mind…
- All physicians will be able to learn business management and marketing methods while continuing to practice medicine, at an affordable cost, and all learning in their spare time, or at home.
- I firmly believe that this website has the capability of rescuing private medical practices from extermination, inciting all medical schools to offer or provide all medical students with business education, upgrading the quality of medical care across our nation, and resolving the core cause of the nationwide attrition of American physicians.
Physician’s medical practice talents and skills are a blessing. Physician’s lack of business education is a profound and persistent deterrent to the career success of every private practice physician.
Physicians are held to be the most important professionals by most citizens in our nation. Most are called to the profession by a single unique event or incentivising factor that drives their inner passion to help humanity progress without a body disease or physical injury hindering the process. Medical school education has succeeded at graduating physicians with high powered skills and medical knowledge that is the envy of other world nations.
Shadowing the advancement of technology and increasing medical knowledge has been an increasingly disturbing factor that has led to the present day impasse that has been complicating the effectiveness of nearly all physicians during their medical practice careers. The impasse is the fact that physicians must have a business education to be significantly successful in the current economic and industrial environment.
All medical schools over the last century have ignored the rationale, necessity, and responsibility for providing a business education for all medical students, and refuse any responsibility for providing and adding a business education curriculum. To expect that all graduating physicians who are business ignorant to self-create a private medical practice business that is profitable, can grow, and be properly managed, borders on the incompetence of medical scholars to understand this problem or to update the medical school curriculum to fix the problem.
The consequences to physicians across our nation continue to be abusive, degrading, and economically destroying hundreds of physicians practices and careers annually for no legitimate reason. In case you haven’t become aware of this incomprehensible situation, let me tell you some of those.
- Thousands of physicians over the last century have lost their private medical practices for financial reasons. and continues today.
- Thousands of physicians over many decades never earn enough income to meet their personal expectations for their medical careers nor their responsibility for their family obligations. Ultimately, most physicians in our nation are predetermined by the lack of business education to never maintain income levels commensurate with their unique education, status, and professional income they have earned and continue to struggle with throughout their medical practice careers.
- Our government has been planning to take over and control our national healthcare for years, by attacking the financial weaknesses in medical school education, namely, the lack of business education. Business education would otherwise provide all physicians the backup and ability to earn as much income as they want or need in spite of government fee restrictions, and medical practice mandates.
- College male students are no longer applying to medical schools because they are smart enough to know that the increasing government fee restrictions on medical doctor practices as well as the decreasing incomes of private practice physicians, along with the disintegration of private medical practices in our nation… and they can do a lot better in other professions and jobs.
- Medical schools have been forced to recruit American women and foreign medical students to fill their classes. We have seen a tsunami of foreign medical doctors in practices and on hospital staffs over the last 10 years.
- The education debts on the backs of graduating medical students at $165,000 average forces at least half of all medical students to join government controlled medical care facilities and other employed positions. Our government pressures private medical doctors to quit private medical practice and to destroy private medical practice. Physicians take home money after making loan payments is further reduced.
Our purpose is to do all that is necessary to improve their incomes, primarily by offering them a business and marketing source that enables any physician to use to dramatically improve their income.
Because medical schools are not providing a business education, we have taken on the obligation to provide the education physicians never got. Remember that marketing is a part of a business education, not separate.
This is who we are. What counts is what we do, not on what we say.
My Mission
Overwhelming evidence from studies, research, respected business experts, and formidable business schools have revealed undeniable proof that businesses succeed at their highest potential only when the foundational business principles are applied consistently to any business.
Consequently, physicians and other professional healthcare providers who lack an academic foundational knowledge of business are predestined to ultimately fail financially to some degree in their medical business.
If the result is not a complete business failure, then one is subject to the medical practice of very mediocre profitability. It contributes extensively to the serious frustration and disappointment felt by those physicians over the last decade.
The resulting attrition of doctors in our country and elsewhere is marked by increased attrition of doctors from medical practice.
Retiring earlier than planned and refusing to acquiesce to incomes that are far below what physicians have honestly earned through extended education efforts and prolonged time in training are inciting factors… without even mentioning the rapidly increasing costs of their education.
We believe that any physician or other medical professional who is provided with the business tools they can use to reach their highest potential and value to their patients and society, will not only remain financially solvent but actually continue to grow their income and their practice regardless of the economic circumstances.
These medical business tools are derived from a business and marketing education.
The only way that healthcare professionals can resolve or avoid these financial deficiencies is to learn how to make enough personal income to reach complete satisfaction and fulfillment in their profession.
The HOW is through business education. We stand by this belief.
My Convictions
Overwhelming evidence from studies, research, respected business experts, and formidable business schools have revealed undeniable proof that businesses succeed at their highest potential only when the foundational business principles are applied consistently to any business.
Consequently, physicians and other professional healthcare providers who lack an academic foundational knowledge of business are predestined to ultimately fail financially to some degree in their medical business.
If the result is not a complete business failure, then one is subject to the medical practice of very mediocre profitability. It contributes extensively to the serious frustration and disappointment felt by those physicians over the last decade.
The resulting attrition of doctors in our country and elsewhere is marked by increased bailing of doctors from medical practice.
Retiring earlier than planned and refusing to acquiesce to incomes that are far below what they have honestly earned through extended education efforts and prolonged time in training are inciting factors… without even mentioning the rapidly increasing costs of their education.
We believe that any physician or other medical professional who is provided with the tools they can use to reach their highest potential and value to their patients and society, will not only remain financially solvent but actually continue to grow their income and their practice regardless of the economic circumstances.
These tools are derived from a business and marketing education.
The only way that healthcare professionals can resolve or avoid these financial deficiencies is to learn how to make enough personal income to reach complete satisfaction and fulfillment in their profession.
The HOW is through business education. We stand by this belief.
My Promises
Overwhelming evidence from studies, research, respected business experts, and formidable business schools have revealed undeniable proof that businesses succeed at their highest potential only when the foundational business principles are applied consistently to any business.
Consequently, physicians and other professional healthcare providers who lack an academic foundational knowledge of business are predestined to ultimately fail financially to some degree in their medical business.
If the result is not a complete business failure, then one is subject to the medical practice of very mediocre profitability. It contributes extensively to the serious frustration and disappointment felt by those physicians over the last decade.
The resulting attrition of doctors in our country and elsewhere is marked by increased bailing of doctors from medical practice.
Retiring earlier than planned and refusing to acquiesce to incomes that are far below what they have honestly earned through extended education efforts and prolonged time in training are inciting factors… without even mentioning the rapidly increasing costs of their education.
We believe that any physician or other medical professional who is provided with the tools they can use to reach their highest potential and value to their patients and society, will not only remain financially solvent but actually continue to grow their income and their practice regardless of the economic circumstances.
These tools are derived from a business and marketing education.
The only way that healthcare professionals can resolve or avoid these financial deficiencies is to learn how to make enough personal income to reach complete satisfaction and fulfillment in their profession.
The HOW is through business education. We stand by this belief.
Curtis G. Graham’s Personal Life
“We care about the health of your medical practice and have created top-rated medical business teaching articles and websites for 15 years for the purpose of providing all physicians with the unique business tools necessary for reaching their maximum profitability in private clinical medical practice.”
We acknowledge the blessings of the Almighty Lord each time in our lives we have used our gifted talents for the benefit of other medical doctors and their patients.
You’ll notice rather quickly I’m ambitious and passionate about teaching business and marketing. Why else would I have invested so much time in my life after retirement from medical practice in 1999 to improve the lives and incomes of physicians and consequently the lives and health of patients everywhere. I know the good Lord put me exactly where he wants me, although many times I have seriously questioned his decision… but I wasn’t about to argue with Him.
Adversity in my life no doubt provided me with the tools to push my natural talents to their upper limits. I’m not complaining, mind you, but I have to admit they have kept me busy and out of trouble—most of the time!
Unexpected life challenges… these were mine…
You see, my first mistake was in thinking that if I was in the Navy and on a ship I would have very little risk of ending up in the actual combat zone in Vietnam. Boy was I wrong! It wasn’t long before I discovered that the Marines import all their medical personnel from the Navy… not voluntarily.
After completing my year of rotating medical internship at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia, my next temporary three month military assignment was to organize the first sickbay on the new aircraft carrier USS GUADALCANAL in Philadelphia… while waiting for assignment to the Naval School of Aviation Medicine, Pensacola, FL.
After three days on the carrier sea trials in rough seas I came to my personal conclusion that sea-sickness should be placed on the list of disabling diseases. After that, I never became seasick on a ship again.
After completing the 6 month flight surgeon’s course at the Naval School of Aviation Medicine April 1964, I was assigned to a Marine Aviation Helicopter Squadron HMM 365 at MCAF (Marine Corps Aviation Facility) Santa Ana, CA. It was a pleasant change from living on the East coast.
The second issue I seemed oblivious to at the time, was not recognizing the fact that the Marines had aviation squadrons that deploy to combat zones. You guessed it! Not that I really had any choice of assignments. Assignment billets were made by our class grades and the availability of one of three aviation bases we requested assignment to. I didn’t get one of the three I requested and went to the bottom of the list of choices. Guess what the last 9 billet assignments at the bottom of the list were… and that all flight surgeons tried to avoid?
HMM 365 Marine Helicopter Squadron and I deployed to Vietnam Oct. 1964. I was only 14 months out of Internship with no combat trauma or major surgical training. I found myself and my two corpsmen managing serious combat injuries from the battlefield to the hospitals via H-34 Helicopters.
ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) casualties were transported to the ARVN hospital in DaNang. American (including Australian Special Forces) casualties were transported by Air Force C-123 to the 8th Army Field Hospital in NhaTrang (3 hours south). By Feb. 1965 the Navy field hospital was fully functioning at DaNang. This was the time that 250,000 US troops were sent into Vietnam by President Johnson and the war escalated.
As an intern in a stateside hospital all serious trauma was managed by simply calling in the “on-call” trauma surgeon to treat injuries. Combat injury triage was something I had not been taught, but soon adapted to. At least until we had a field hospital at DaNang. I say that because when we arrived at DaNang the closest American military hospital for American casualties prior to that was a 3 hours flight away.
Our tour at DaNang, S. Vietnam became a pivot point of my life. It turned out that I was one of the few Naval Flight Surgeons who actually flew on combat medevac missions (over 80). Later, flight surgeons were restricted from flying on these missions, as two flight surgeons had already died on missions in Vietnam… I was told. Regrettably, my dear friend and corpsman Dan Bennett, 19 years old who volunteered to join our squadron while our squadron was deployed to Okinawa for 3 weeks in the middle of our combat tour, was killed on a “hot zone” mission in May 1965. That grieved all of us.
Navy corpsmen after 6 months training and assigned to the Marine Aviation Units were expected to fly on all medevac missions. The Navy assigns corpsmen, physicians, and other medical-dental personnel to serve with the Marine units. I should have been a dentist… as they avoided medevac duty.
I found that the Navy corpsmen could do everything I could do on a combat medevac mission with casualties, to their credit as qualified medical personnel. I know because I flew with both of mine on many missions many times.
When my wife now says, “Let’s go camping,” I suddenly get a completely different mental picture of the process than she does… in spite of my many camping exploits while in the Boy Scouts. I resigned my military commission May 1967. The other choice was to stay in the Navy and go back to Vietnam again. I left the Navy to start my OBG residency in Philly. You may be old enough to remember the old “expectation” in the 1950s, that by joining the National Guard was a unique way to avoid actual combat and deployment. As a result of being a “regular” Navy officer and doctor, I was handed a one year extension of my Navy service duty time… “reserve” doctors didn’t.
I completed three year specialty training residency (OB-GYN) at Hahnemann University Hospital and Medical School, Phila. PA in 1970. After over 20 years in practice in the Bay Area of CA and five years as a hospitalist employee after that in Michigan, I retired from practice in 1999 at my wife’s insistence. My reasons emanated from my increasing frustration with the medical practice malpractice environment and the health problems it caused for me.
“Great accomplishments have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm “
– Thomas J. Watson
My wife Linda was raised in Portland, OR… then Redding, CA, attended Univ. of Oregon, and spent over 30 years as a Medical Assistant in several doctor’s offices, the last 20 or those in my medical office as manager. She has spunk, brains, and loves helping people. How could I help not marrying her? It’s impossible to relate how many times her incredible judgment, business savvy, and social acumen kept me on the right path.
The only exception I can think of is when she got me on a pair of skis for my first time at age 45. You might say it bruised my ego, strained my judgment, terrorized my sense of balance, and scrapped my mental picture of how easy it would be… at least on the first day. We did come out about even when it came to camping.
OK—Now About My Writing Credentials...
My writing talent came to me inadvertently. The need to educate my patients became obvious right from the start of my private medical practice in 1973. It began with constructing some simple medical treatment instructions and advice as handouts for my patients. No other local physicians were doing that in the 1970s locally.
Forgetting what your doctor just told you, is usual. It gave patients a second resource for referencing the healthcare information without having to call back and ask. It saved myself and my office staff hours of time with phone calls from patients.
It was easy for me to write everything in simple-to-understand terms. Patients often asked for extra medical handouts to give other family members and friends. I had no idea at the time that it actually was a method of marketing my medical practice. An enjoyable hobby to educate my patients was all it was intended to be. My idea spread to a few other physicians eventually, however, most physicians remained stuck in the belief that it was a useless gesture that never helped patients.
The interesting thing about the personal instruction and postop handouts that I created for all my patients (in the 5 hospitals I was on the medical staff of) was how I was treated when I started doing it. For the first 6 months I found that my stash of handouts in the hospital nursing station, I commonly found in the ward trash can.
When I saw the benefit of my handouts, my suggestion to the medical staff committee to create similar handouts for everyone to use if they wished to do so, was rapidly dismissed as an insult to them. I believed it was a remarkable benefit and they thought I was an arrogant SOB to even suggest such a thing by trying to “force” other doctors to adopt my ideas.
The present-day spin-off of my ideas along those lines are the new HIPPA and other governmental agency healthcare requirements mandating these exact ideas be implemented by doctors after 2006 and since. They even are now mandating the creation of actual manuals in doctor’s offices to cover these and many other “logging” issues.
You might be amazed at what actually is being thrown at physicians today. You can find the exact details in a book by Steven M. Hacker, MD, The Medical Entrepreneur, Page 27, second edition. A few of my physician associates, 6 doctor call group, started making up their own patient information sheets using mine as a guide. An accumulation of instructional books and information about writing effectively kept me in the flame and improved my writing ability… even if it started as just a useful medical hobby of mine.
My brother got me started.
He encouraged me to test the waters of the medical publication world just for the heck of it. Joe Conn, the editor of Modern Physician, felt sorry for me and agreed to publish a short article of mine in Modern Physician. I was hooked.
Being able to publish ezines, newsletters, and eBooks on the Internet has opened another great opportunity for me to continue to help other doctors using the knowledge both medical and business-related which I have accumulated over all those years.
Many of my medical articles are being published in the article directories, primarily in ezinearticles.com, and other publications. My articles are all reviewed and approved by the ezine editors for acceptable, credible, and valuable content… no useless info allowed.
It’s hard to quit! — being productive, that is.
Somehow the thought of listing my credentials, medical and social organizations I belong to (and have belonged to), and other awards just doesn’t seem appropriate here. If you prefer a list, I’ll send you the one—no problem! You can also view a copy of my CV if that’s of interest to you.
The medical profession has continued to accomplish unbelievable steps in the evolution of healthcare and medical treatment over time, especially as a result of new technology, but there remains for the older doctors the difficult process of adapting to the digital age, high speed of medicine, and a completely different medical-patient mindset… let alone accommodating the young doctors with a completely different attitude about medical practice.
The new generation of physicians have jumped far ahead on a technological basis while lacking in some of the more important issues critical to medical practice business and marketing success and their personal private medical practice financial survival.
