Find your niche. We are all different – that is what makes the world of endocrinology so wonderful. Some of us love type two diabetes, some of us love bone, thyroid, obesity, lifestyle. There are so many sub-subspecialties within endocrinology and we all know what we gravitate toward.
Doing what you are passionate about will resonate with the patients who seek you out. Remember, you do not need many patients to have a thriving direct care practice. Even 100 patients can give you a thriving practice.
The riches are in the niches.
Once you figure out what lights you on fire, start identifying the exact patient you are looking for. This is called creating your ideal customer avatar. Trust me, there is even a way to make this work for low or average income patients (those are some of the patients I like to work with most). Tailor your business model to that patient. It is much easier to be the go to expert in one thing that you love than to try to be a jack of all trades. I wish I’d learned this earlier. I don’t love thyroid cancer. It’s not my thing. Lifestyle optimization and type 2 diabetes, thyroid myth busting – those are my things. I can feel the fire in my chest just typing that sentence.
Early in my practice (back when I was the physician, nurse, janitor, web developer, etc), I gave a patient thyrogen injections in her butt. I procured the thyrogen, worked with insurance, went back and forth for the delivery, ordered the stat TSH, coordinated imaging. It got done and it got done well. But let me tell you – that was a low time for me. I hated it. A few months later, I decided I was not doing thyroid cancer anymore (unless it was super stable, years out and the patient had another active condition I was managing) and that was that. Haven’t missed it for a second.
There are endos who love thyroid cancer – let them do what they love, and if it’s you, thank you for existing!