“I founded my first medical device company during residency. I worked on the company in my spare time as I moved to private practice. I was able to close a series A VC funding round after my second year of practice. The investment allowed me to become chief medical officer for the company and devote all
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December 2024my time to making the company successful,” he explained. “Since I had completed residency, I knew I could return to medicine if my company did not work out.”
Inspiration to Leave
Initially, Dr. Gonzales did not believe he could make a career out of inventing devices and founding companies in med tech. “I took the gamble of following what I truly enjoyed. Also, I realized that by creating devices that change outcomes, I can still make a dramatic impact on patient care,” he said.
Dr. Chin-Quee explained that as “an artist and storyteller at heart when I came upon the opportunity to apply to work as a medical script consultant for ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ I jumped at it.” While it was an intern position offering a fraction of his previous earnings, he noted that “it brought me into a world I never knew existed: the Hollywood writers’ room. As I participated in the collaborative storytelling process required to make a television show, I was hooked and immediately sought out information on how to become a television writer full time. I met some wonderful mentors and friends who helped guide me along the way and make my transition possible.”
I took the gamble of following what I truly enjoyed. Also, I realized that by creating devices that change outcomes, I can still make a dramatic impact on patient care. —Donald Gonzales, MD
For Dr. Miller, her love of science inspired her to change career paths. “I love the wonder of the human body and disease pathology. I love the dissection of the puzzle, the diagnostic journey, the medical quandaries.” She previously completed medical legal reviews, and enjoyed “reading medical charts, dissecting each part and putting it all together to determine if and where things went wrong.” She also enjoyed considering the doctor’s thought process of the patient’s problem.
Now working in utilization management, Dr. Miller reads charts, deliberates on the patient’s problem, and considers the next steps in their clinical journey.
Life-Changing Experience
Dr. Miller does not miss clinical practice. Her current position provides both a better work-life balance, given that she now works remotely and sets her own hours, and intellectual stimulation. It “hits everything that I love about medicine. It allows me to be exposed to a much wider breadth of medicine than I would ever have encountered in clinical practice,” she said. Dr. Miller noted that she likely would never have considered leaving clinical practice, however, if she had not had children.
Since leaving ENT practice, Dr. Means’ life has changed dramatically. “I collaborate with policymakers, entrepreneurs, hospital and insurance company CEOs, researchers, healthcare practitioners, and patients towards a singular goal of reversing the rapidly growing chronic disease epidemic in America that is rooted in a toxic food system and other environmental factors that are destroying our cellular health,” she explained.
“I am more fulfilled in my work because I am free to focus on the root causes of why Americans are sick, and the financial incentives of my work are no longer tied to patient volume, charting, and billing,” Dr. Means continued. “It was challenging to see a culture of intense burnout in the surgical field as a resident, and my perception is that this results because many doctors feel trapped working tirelessly in a broken system. Getting to focus on how to fix the system through education, policy, writing, and advocacy has been deeply fulfilling, and I have gotten to collaborate with some of my former ENT colleagues along the way.”
Dr. Gonzales stated that a benefit of clinical practice over entrepreneurship is stability. “A small fraction of start-ups become successful. All aspects of the company must work out against the odds for fundraising and a successful exit. This can create several unknowns and can be stressful.” He added, “I would not have left practice without raising enough money to be able to make the venture successful.”
“My life has changed in every way possible. I have founded and sold two med tech companies and helped the acquirers in the ENT space. I am now working on a third,” Dr. Gonzales said. “Instead of direct patient care, I spend my day patenting, working with R&D for product development, and working with my clinical team on trials.”
Value of Clinical Practice
“My years of training and practice were integral for being successful in the med-tech space,” Dr. Gonzales said. “There is no other way to understand the ENT issues and therapeutic problems that need new solutions.”
While Dr. Chin-Quee does not miss clinical practice, life is more unpredictable, as television writing is fickle, and he is supplementing his income with health equity consulting. Still, “I wouldn’t have it any other way. When I’m in the flow of writing a new story that I know can evoke emotions and meaningful conversations in a viewing audience, I love it. And that’s a feeling I’ve never had before professionally, and I’d never trade,” he said.
Dr. Chin-Quee doubts that anything could have prevented him from leaving clinical practice. “Perhaps if alternative career paths were discussed more openly and without judgment during residency, I might have found a way to have a foot in both worlds and be happy.”
Many mental hurdles need to be overcome to follow an alternative career path after working in the traditional medical field, according to Dr. Chin-Quee. He shared two insights: “1) Don’t be a slave to the fallacy of sunken costs. Just because you’ve put years of money and time into one path does not obligate you to follow it, and 2) Your years of experience in medicine will never be a waste. Whichever path you choose to explore, you’ll take the wisdom from lessons learned along the way, making yourself an exciting and unique candidate with a fresh perspective to share with whichever new industry you find.”