Leverage Your Experiences Into Transferable Skills – Parts I, II, II
Category: Physician Career Resilience, Physician Coaching Tips
Leverage Your Experiences Into Transferable Skills – Part I
What kind of skills and experience do you have that can be transferred to a non-clinical career? Developing an inventory of skills and accomplishments is a prerequisite to knocking on doors, and is helpful to do even before you start networking. Leading your own clinical practice does build organization skills—to a point. However, navigating in a peer-to-peer world is what is most valuable as you start to venture outside the confines of your closely controlled clinical practice. In this and the next issue of the Daring Doctors Newsletter, some suggestions for Basic Skills and Advanced Skills are offered.
Basic Skills:
- Communicating in a professional manner as a team member (listening, reflecting, clarifying, brainstorming, offering feedback)
- Facilitating meetings and dealing with difficult people
- Working within a team structure to start and complete a project within a budget and timeline
- Understanding how organizational systems work
- Negotiating for win-win
- Speaking in front of groups (of at least 15)
- Understanding basic accounting
- Having basic computer skills (Word, Excel, Email, Internet Surfing)
The next Newsletter will address Advanced Skills plus some suggestions for the type of accomplishments that demonstrate you have these skills.
Leverage Your Experiences Into Transferable Skills Part II
What kind of skills and experience do you have that can be transferred to a non-clinical career? Developing an inventory of skills and accomplishments is a prerequisite to knocking on doors, and is helpful to do even before you start networking. The last Newsletter addressed Basic Skills that are essential to develop as make your transition. In this Newsletter suggestions for Advanced Skills are offered. Early in a transition, you need not have all the advanced skills listed. For physician executives, competency in at least five areas is essential.
Advanced Skills:
- Strategic Planning
- Product or Service line development
- Change management
- Speaking in front of large groups
- Financial management and calculation of ROI, NPV and IRR
- Conflict resolution
- New venture business planning
- Full scale project management
- Goals-based people management
In the next Newsletter, “domain-specific” skills will be addressed. Domain expertise reflects your passions, natural gifts, or learned experience within an area. As physicians, we have deep domain expertise in Medicine. As you move into other areas of business, leadership, or into the world at large, acquiring new domain expertise or nurturing existing talents is imperative.
Leverage Your Experience Into Transferable Skills – Part III
What kind of skills and experience do you have that can be transferred to a non-clinical career? Developing an inventory of skills and accomplishments is a prerequisite to knocking on doors, and is helpful to do even before you start networking. The last two Newsletters addressed Basic Skills and Advanced Skills that are essential to develop as make your transition. In this Newsletter suggestions for Domain-specific skills are offered. Domain expertise reflects your passions, natural gifts, or learned experience within an area. As physicians, we have deep domain expertise in Medicine. As you move into other areas of business, leadership, or into the world at large, acquiring new domain expertise or nurturing existing talents is imperative.
Be open to exploring domain skills and talents that you may have abandoned or made your avocation—this is your opportunity to be creative, gutsy and bold and bring your whole self to your vocation!
Examples of Domain Skills in Healthcare:
- Clinical Trials Management
- Medical Informatics
- Health Network Development
- Utilization Management
- Clinical Process Improvement
- Legal Medicine
- Ethics in Medicine
- Medical Entrepreneurship
- Alternative therapy
- Health policy
Examples of Domain Skills Outside of Healthcare
- Journalism/broadcasting
- Creative Writing
- Music
- Speaking
- Art/Sculpture/Architecture
- Graphic Design
- Humor
- Computer programming
- Gardening
- Cooking/Nutrition
- Coaching/Sports
- Ministry
- Fashion/ Pop Culture
- A million other ideas
Many physicians in transition often choose the path of developing healthcare-specific domain skills, thinking: “I don’t want to throw away everything that I’ve learned.” “After all, how many of us have the talent of Patch Adams or Michael Crichton?” If you have a non-healthcare talent or passion, then go for it! Doors will open once you choose to honor the whole you!
Leveraging your experiences into transferable skills in a short excerpt from our home study course The Physician’s Definitive Guide to Career Transition. To learn more click here.