Medicine – man, what a career. It’s a chaotic, lucrative, and rewarding mess which I’ve been involved in ever since 1996 when I decided to pursue it in undergrad. Medicine doesn’t care too much about my resume and so having a website to highlight my work is unnecessary.
But my website is my resume when it comes to doing work which requires results. What I mean by that is that the clinical practice of medicine only requires me to show up sober and do what I’m told.
Healthcare innovation and a healthcare business is the opposite of this. You have to have a clear vision, you have to hold yourself accountable, and you have to measure results in order to know which changes to make.
The Live Resume
Anyone interested in working with me can come on here and look through my website to learn about what I know, what I have done, and where my interests are.
A static resume – a 1-page sheet of paper – only tells someone what companies I’ve been involved in. If those companies are big-name businesses then the 1-pager is all that I need.
More often, you need to discuss the work you have done with each business and highlight what you accomplished. You need a portfolio of sorts and explain your journey to potential employers or clients.
My Website as my Resume
This website has both gotten me into trouble and has gotten me out of trouble. The overall direction however has been positive. I have used it to make money, to discuss my stance, to learn from others, and to ward off those who may want to swindle me or abuse me.
If you are comfortable sharing your point of view publicly as I do then in return you get to connect with like-minded individuals. You also drive away those who find your opinions backward or generally don’t like your attitude.
On this website, I share my opinions about medicine and my healthcare consulting work. But I also list out what work I do with which companies. I then use that particular article link to show to a potential client or employer why we might be a good fit.
For example, I worked on the Teladoc platform and shared my experience with my physician colleagues. I shared my work experience on Just Answer. And I talked about my Kaiser Permanente work experience and how to hack the retirement system there.
Publishing a Work Portfolio
I don’t do a good job of keeping a work portfolio. I work with many different companies often on short-term projects and I worry about any intellectual property which is why I try to talk about it indirectly.
But keeping actual work on a website like Github or Kaggle makes me cringe. If you are more organized I recommend doing that. Otherwise, a personal website like this will serve as your resume better than any of those options.
I have pages and articles on here which are hidden behind a password or unpublished links. So, I can create an article but not publish it and only share that link with potential clients or employers. This is good for more sensitive material.
Clinical Experience
Recently, I started working in an urgent care seeing patients. I wrote an article about it here and I updated my work on my Linkedin profile.
No matter what happens with this employer I’ll have timestamped articles detailing my work with them. Some of these articles will be public and others I won’t publish for the sake of that business and for my own security.
Just the process of writing down what you do will help you realize how much you actually achieve in a certain job. Believe me, my best learning has come from reflecting on my clinical work here on this website.