The road to a successful physician career transition is paved with homework and persistence

How long does one have to be a practicing physician before it becomes obvious that a clinical career isn't the right line of work to be in?

I guess it depends.

In Mike McLaughlin MD's case, it didn't take long. This highly-trained plastic and hand surgeon suspected during even his residency that clinical practice wasn't his ideal job. Nevertheless, he persisted by going into practice long enough to confirm that his future professional happiness depended on quitting clinical practice.

Guided by a relative who served as a business mentor, he began the 2-year long quest to find an alternative non-clinical career that preferably encompassed at least some of his hard-earned medical knowledge.

He explored his passion for writing by investigating the field of medical communications ... and a new non-clinical career was born.

Several physician executive jobs later, his own successful medical communications business Peloton Advantage was born, co-founded with a colleague. In addition he donates his time to his generous sideline passion, the physician career networking site, Physician Renaissance Network (PRN). He has also found time to use his writing skills by penning a part personal memoir-part self help book, "Do You Feel Like You Wasted All That Training? Questions from Doctors Considering a Career Change".

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