Noticing the local physicians who practiced in your area, stayed for two years or so, and then moved to a “different place to practice” (cover story—meaning they never made enough income to stay in practice in your area) involves thousands of physicians across our nation annually, which has led to the physician attrition crisis today. Not enough money or income is most often the cause.

You may not know that you are among the 98 percent of physicians who graduate from medical school who are business ignorant. The problem started about a century ago when some brilliant medical scholars who lacked business education decided to eliminate any course or curriculum teaching medical school students business knowledge. In today’s business world, that decision was insane.

That one fact has persisted, unchanged, for over 12 decades, and nothing has been done to upgrade the quality of business knowledge of physicians in our rapidly changing business environment.

Much worse, every medical school in the USA has been warned to refrain from mentioning or discussing the value and benefits of a business education with medical students, which leaves all medical students thinking that a business education is useless to them. Is it the intention of medical schools to keep physicians ignorant of the financial issues they will face in private practice?

Four reasons you may have considered for quitting medicine

1. You eventually learn that you are business ignorant because you don’t know how to increase and grow your medical practice business persistently.

2. Unfortunately, you have been led to believe that you never needed a business education to practice medicine. That myth has led to thousands of physicians losing their practices annually.

3. You don’t know how to earn money using the business principles that all successful and wealthy commercial business owners have known for decades.

4. You remain entirely ignorant of how to manage a business profitably and how to market your business effectively—two critical issues that don’t pop into your mind suddenly.

If it is still your decision to reject a business education, you might be interested in learning more about what a business education can do for your medical practice career success. Learning that you can increase your practice and income 20 times more than you are today may be of little importance or interest.

Experts know the truth in the world of business. An ideal comparison is made between the financial outcomes physicians face in their careers in private practice and the financial outcomes that commercial small business owners face in their businesses when business education is absent.

It has been proven, for example, that 95 percent of small business owners fail within five years of starting their business. The cause is a lack of effective business management and marketing—meaning, no business education.

After about five years in practice, all private medical practice physicians commonly discover that their incomes flatten out. The boom at the beginning, fostered by all the new patients who want to check out the new physician in town, shortly wears off. By then, most physicians understand the importance of increasing the number of patients required to increase their incomes. And that is the only one all physicians know they need.

The problem then becomes a second flattening of income because most physicians don’t know how to market to new patients—they have no business education. Beyond that is the difficulty of creating significant management changes in their offices to meet increased patient flow. Do you know how to do that effectively? Do you know how to continue doing it for the rest of your career profitably, persistently, and effectively?

Some physicians figure that having an MBA solves all those business education problems, only to discover that an MBA is far too superficial to be of adequate value to physicians in private medical practice—especially if a physician expects a significant income in the future.

Thinking points to consider that may change your mind

With an academic business education—such as a two-year on-campus business education—there is no limit to the amount of medical practice income you can earn whenever you choose, for whatever reason.

• The cost is from $40,000 to $60,000 at top universities.
• You would need to stop practicing for two years.
• The cost is added to the educational debt you owe at graduation.

Medical schools do not offer an academic business education. Some medical schools (about three or four) do offer an MBA. Some premeds attain an MBA before medical school. I do not recommend an online MBA.

• Smart medical school students should demand that the school provide a business education. Most refuse to do so.
• The ideal time for your business education is while you are a medical student in a significant learning venture. I believe any medical school could provide digital academic business education for about $2,000 if they choose to.
• The absolute failure of colleges that offer pre-med advice and support could offer a business education while in college and do not. At least they could indoctrinate premeds in the value and benefits of business education.

Business education is critical because its functional aspects involve constantly adapting to new and better ways to get what you want or need, both in management and marketing. This means you will become involved in these processes daily in your practice. It requires your attention daily for as long as you practice medicine—to remain on the cutting edge of your profession.

• Business education is far easier than memorizing the origins and insertions of every muscle in the human body.
• You do not have to know all about business education—you may discover one or two methods or strategies you are comfortable performing (or a staff member is)—forget the rest. If one doesn’t work, try another.

Curtis G. Graham is a physician.