My favorite reader, SeaSpray, has asked several times why I have been posting with less frequency in recent weeks. Well, there are a variety of reasons for this, but basically, I write less because I feel there is less need for me to write.
When I first began to write the Independent Urologist blog, my experience with start-up was fresh and raw. Every day brought something new that needed to be published. For me, publishing was therapeutic, like a form a counseling I suppose. It helped me to collect my thoughts and to process the daily peaks and valleys that must occur in every start-up business and that certainly happened in my own business, big time! For me, my first 1 to 1 1/2 years as a solo practice urologist was the most exciting period of my life, far and away. I simply had to write about it or I felt I might explode. The fact that I had an audience made blogging that much more fun.
Fortunately, my practice is doing well now and I have settled into somewhat of a nice routine. It is not boring. Far from it. I just am no longer surprised when I get several new patients in a given day nor am I devastated when I don't. I have a schedule that is relatively constant from week to week. I have my typical busy days, slow days, late nights,and early mornings, and I drive my 3 1/2 year old to and from school 2 days per week, in between patient sessions.
Many of the challenges that I faced early on, such as getting my lab accredited and my office functional, I have overcome. I do a variety of in-office procedures, such a cystoscopies, vasectomies, and prostate biopsies, and I have developed such easy routines for preparing and doing these procedures, that they no longer cause me any stress, any heartache. Even scheduling patients for in-hospital procedures has become routine, automated, easy. Nothing more to blog about there, which is good.
From a staffing perspective, I have 2 people who have been with me from the beginning and a medical assistant, who I trained a few months ago, who are all excellent and loyal employees and they all plan to remain in their current positions indefinitely. As far as I know! So while I no longer have blog topics on staffing issues, I have stability, and that is better than blogging.
My homegrown EMR was a good source of blog topics for a while, but even that is just performing silently and bug-free in the background, as any good EMR should. I just don't feel the need to write about it any longer. With regard to digital back-up, I no longer need to expend mental energy on it, because I finally seemed to have come up with solutions that work for me automatically and effortlessly. It only took 21 months, but with regard to back-up, I have finally started sleeping at night, my infant not-withstanding.
Attracting new patient business, marketing, and practice building were a great source of blog post topics for a long while. Here, however, I have stopped writing for 2 reasons. One, I've become very adept at attracting new patient business economically and I no longer "need" to write about it from a therapeutic perspective. And two, I don't wish to share such valuable information with my competitors. It is that simple.
Medical malpractice is a favorite blog topic of many bloggers, but I never really got into that one. I guess that personal views on that topic are best kept personal. Just ask Flea. Enough said.
I do have much left to do in my still young practice and I plan to continue writing about it. But hopefully, I wont feel the need to write about it. I want stability and yes, even boredom. Those are 2 signs of a mature business, one with a future and in this regard, I feel that I have arrived.
Thanks for listening.
The IU.
