Scrubs & Side Gigs: Finding Opportunities to Complement Your Medical Career

Welcome & Acknowledgements

Paul Roscoe (OntarioMD)

Good afternoon, everyone. It is now noon, and we will get started. My name is Paul Roscoe, and I'm the director of business development at OntarioMD.

It is my pleasure to welcome you to our new series, OMD Vendor Spotlights, a collaborative series that highlights companies driving transformative change in healthcare through cutting edge digital tools and technologies.

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This land is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

We thank all generations of people who have taken care of this land, and recognize and deeply appreciate their historic connection to this place.

Before I introduce our hosts, a few housekeeping notes.

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This session is being recorded and will be available on the OntarioMD website next week.

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And now I'd like to welcome our sponsor, Dr.Bill.

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Thanks very much, Paul. I'm absolutely excited to be here today representing Dr.Bill, and I am joined by a very special guest whom I will introduce shortly.

Now before we start, so for those of you of you who are not familiar with who we are, Dr.Bill is a medical billing platform, and, really, all we do is medical billing. Our mission is to streamline the billing process and help physicians get paid to give back time to focus on what matters most, patient care.

In 2014, Dr.Bill was founded, in Vancouver, British Columbia. And since inception, we've grown, now servicing physicians across Ontario, BC, and Alberta.

In 2022, Dr.Bill acquired MDBilling.ca to further strengthen and expand the OHIP service offering, effectively bringing Dr.Bill to a total of twenty five years of experience in medical billing.

Today, very proud to say we service over ten thousand individual physicians, one hundred and twenty five group practices, and we're the largest stand-alone medical billing provider in Ontario, servicing roughly one in five Ontario physicians.

My name is Chris Hanscomb. I'm a senior consultant, here at Dr.Bill.

While at Dr.Bill, I've worked directly with hundreds of physicians, hospitals. I worked with some clinics across the country to help drive efficiency in medical billing. I've spent about fifteen years working in Canadian finance and technology, really focusing on the intersection, of those two things within Canadian healthcare.

At Dr.Bill, we're seeing more and more physicians, whether it be individuals, clinics, hospitals, or networks, explore the benefits and efficiency derived from having a more unified approach to medical billing. And this is really where I spend the majority of my time, working with groups of physicians to understand options to optimize medical billing.

Now joining me today is our guest presenter, Dr. Nour Khatib.

Thank you very much for being here. It's great to see you again.

Dr. Khatib is an emergency physician at Markham Stouffville Hospital and locums at rural sites in Ontario and the Northwest Territories.

Dr. Khatib completed her MBA and worked as a financial analyst at Pratt and Whitney, in Canada. And Dr. Khatib is passionate about emergency medicine, but recognizes that career longevity and burnout prevention require diversifying revenue streams and work hours.

Dr. Khatib is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto and associate professor at Queen's University, and she also advises medical tech startups and speaks to corporate and healthcare audiences on strategies to prevent burnout.

So now to the to the meat and potatoes of today's session. It's all about exploring opportunities to enhance your career without necessarily stepping away from medicine. This session isn't about planning an exit or looking beyond day to day practice.

It's about professional growth and creating diverse income streams, and adding fulfillment to your medical journey while identifying solutions to prevent burnout. So without further ado, Dr. Khatib, I will pass it over to you. Oh, sorry.

One more comment.

Questions, thoughts, you know, whatever's on your mind, please, you know, post it in the chat. Dr. Khatib's going to go through a presentation, and then we'll address, kind of a Q&A a in the second half.

So now over to you.

Setting the Stage: Why Talk About Side Gigs?

Dr. Nour Khatib

Thank you so much, Chris, for that kind introduction.

So today, we'll be talking about something a little different. We don't normally get medical talks about side gigs. We're kind of told to just work in medicine, and this is what we've chosen and work in our career. But I'm going to talk to you about side gigs and how to kind of complement your medical career.

I'm an emergency physician at Markham Stouffville Hospital here in Ontario, and I wear other hats, which I'll get to show you today and how I got there.

First off, very important, a disclaimer / conflict of interest. I have no conflicts of interest. I do get a stipend for this talk. And, I have to tell you that any billing information you get from this talk, which you won't be getting any billing information, is for medical advice, purposes only. And you can direct you can go to www.dr-bill.ca more information. But this is not a billing talk. This is a talk about side gigs and really just career fulfillment.

So who am I? Why am I talking to you about this? Well, I came to Canada as an immigrant, as a young child, and I, in fact, went into my first career was in finance. I worked in finance. I worked for Pratt and Whitney Canada, was a financial analyst, did an MBA, and then decided I want to go into medicine.

Sounds strange to most people. Some even ask me, Do you regret it? No, absolutely not.

Now I'm an emergency physician. My career number two, my true passion, something I really love doing.

But like any part of medicine, it will instigate burnout if we don't do it properly, if we don't have a proper work life balance, if we don't know how to manage both our time and the responsibilities and how difficult it is to be a physician. It's not a regular job.

So as an emergency physician, I loved it and I see myself as an emergency physician. But I felt the burnout. I felt like I was I wanted to quit, and I looked into many ways which I will share with you about how to kind of overcome this burnout.

One of them was to explore income and, work diversity, whether it's location or type of work. Okay? And so now I talk to you about that because I hope that I can, I can share with you things that I have learned? Now let's start with what are the benefits of side gigs.

Sure. There's supplemental income. I'll start by saying first and foremost, we know this. Nothing will pay more than, a than your clinical day.

Right? Like, most side gigs or most, most aspects that you do on this side are not going to pay as much as your clinical day. But for me, it I love emergency medicine.

If I were to work fifteen to twenty shifts a month like a lot of my colleagues, I would be burnt out. And I wouldn't want to work in it anymore. And I would hate it. But I love it.

But I know the more I do it, I might become more jaded. I might and burnout will come very quickly. So I recognize that for me, the extra income of working an emerg shift versus something that would pay less, it's not worth it. So, yes, there's supplemental income.

Of note, not as much as your regular pay most of the time. You're going to develop a new skill or enhance a skill that you already have.

You're going to prevent burnout by doing this, and it's a way to professionally network.

I'm going to say this next part, and I'm going to say it again and again because this is to enhance career longevity and prevent burnout or combat burnout, and it's to unlock new opportunities for your personal and professional growth. It is not an exit strategy. It is absolutely not an exit strategy. If you hate medicine, then, this is not your talk.

I love medicine and I love emergency medicine. I really do but I recognize that I cannot do it full time or more than full time. I just cannot or else I will lose that love for it. So I ask you to embrace the power of side gigs to enhance your medical career, combat the burnout, and look at new personal and professional fulfillment ways.

Physician Burnout

I don't need to tell you about burnout. You feel it yourself. Sixty percent of physicians report experiencing burnout. This is more than any other profession. One in four physicians have considered leaving medicine, something you've worked your entire career, your entire life to get to.

Burnout rates are among are highest with physicians, and the top causes are excessive workloads, inefficient workflows, lack of work life balance, and I felt it. I felt completely alone. And this is after a few years of practice. I was like, is this really what we worked our entire life to do? And I was, you know, so excited about becoming an emergency physician, about loving emergency medicine, but loving medicine in general.

And you don't you got I know you feel this, but when you when you're kind of introducing yourself to someone, a lot of our identity is intertwined along the fact that we became doctors or medicine or whatnot. But there has to be more than that. It's about our family, our friends, our life experiences, and medicine is one of them, but it's not all of it.

But I understand that with all the workload, with all the excessive workload and the burnout, it just feels like, oh my gosh. This is such a big part of my life, and I cannot leave or I I'm worried about what I'm doing next, you will feel alone, and that's how I felt. I was constantly worrying about the next part of my life without realizing I'm right in the middle where I used to look forward to.

And this, unfortunately, is true for a lot of our type-A folks, a lot of our people in medicine, kind of just continuously trying and striving, and it almost feels like a rat race of our own.

So when I felt this in myself and I felt this burnout coming and truly living it, I thought I need to do something about this. And I thought to myself, how am I going to improve? I tried to look at many different ways.

And I started thinking of this term, I don't it doesn't exist out there. I kind of, made it up, wellness wealth. When we think of wealth, we think of money, but let's think of our wellness wealth. Wellness wealth can in can include your, personal life, family, friends, you can include philanthropy, it can include your career, it can include your hobbies.

It's everything that makes you feel well and adds to this wellness wealth. Wellness, state of being in good health, especially in actively pursuing a goal, and then wealth and abundance of possessions or money. But in this case, it's more of in general. Everything that makes you a happier person or a more content person.

So I thought to myself, this is in the middle of my burnout. How am I going to get better? How? I don't want to leave emergency. I don't want to leave medicine, but it sure feels like I'm about to. So I looked into therapy and journaling and lifestyle changes and all of these aspects.

And, honestly, I tried way more than what you see out here. These are the ones that worked for me personally. Other things might work for you, but these are the ones that worked for me.

And one thing that stood out was diversifying type of work and location.

Type of work. So type of medicine or even non-medical, hence side gigs, or location.

Whether I do a shift online or I do a shift in Northwest Territories or I do a shift in my hometown. So it just it made a big difference removing myself from into different locations, whether it's virtual or not, and changing the type of work. It made a big difference for me. And this is what I want to emphasize on today.

Why Consider a Side Gig?

Why should we even consider side gigs?

First of all, you signed up for this talk today, so you must be considering a side gig or wondering what your colleagues are doing.

Well, you can diversify your income streams. That's great. We know it's not going to pay as much as a clinical, a clinical day, but that's okay.

You'll see why.

Preventing burnout, enhancing well-being, developing new skills, maintaining stimulation, future proofing your career, that's a big one for me and I'll talk to you about that, and building a legacy or making an impact because your side gig could be anything, whether medical, nonmedical, whatever it is. Diversifying your income stream is part of your side gigs, of course. Now, I did mention, that, you know, it's okay that it doesn't pay as much as a clinical day. Why? You have to realize your medical career is a marathon, not a sprint.

I have colleagues that are that are that are in their first five to seven years of practice who have are now who have been working twenty shifts a month in emergency medicine.

That is not sustainable.

That is absolutely not sustainable. I cannot imagine them doing this for a very long time. Maybe they'll be able to do it, but will they be content and happy and satisfied with their career?

It's not sustainable to do that. You have to realize that it's a marathon, not a sprint.

And that's something I realized. I realized, you know what? I love my career, and I truly do.

But if I'm going to work in this field for long for the marathon, I need to make sure that I'm diversifying what I'm doing, that I continuously enjoy my career rather than, you know, okay. This is what you like. You're going to do only this.

So marathon, not a sprint. That is your career. You do not want to burn out in your first fifteen years of practice only to quit and change careers or just not want to do it when, you know, you could diversify from the start and turn it into a marathon.

Types of Side Gigs: From Clinical to Creative

What types of side gigs are there? There's medical side gigs, nonmedical side gigs. There's clinical opportunities, teaching opportunities, business and entrepreneurship. You would be very, surprised to know how many ventures out there like startups and whatnot that just want your advice as a physician. And they would pay physicians to get their advice. And, you know, it's a great way for you to, number one, network, learn new skills.

For example, there's this company called Halo Health. It's a membership for physicians and dentists and it discusses startups and all these technological startups go to this community called Halo Health and pitches startups to physicians and asks their advice. There's many things like this out there, and that's a way for you to get into business and entrepreneurship for medical side gigs. There's creative pursuits where you can write about your clinical experiences, unconventional side gigs, always available like cruise ship coverage, and I'll discuss that.

And you're like, where do I even start? I don't even know. I don't even know where to start. What kind of side gigs are there?

And really, side gigs and physicians? How does that work? Well, you know what? You don't have to take it from me.

Where to Start: 75+ Ideas from ChatGPT

On ChatGPT, if you just ask for an exhaustive list of medical doctor side gigs, whether it's educational, business related, creative, nonmedical. Look at this.

Concierge med, event concert medicine. I do this twice a year. I was the concert doctor for Lady Gaga and for, Ed Sheeran.

Sleep medicine, I have many colleagues who switched into not switched, but side gig into sleep medicine.

There's, you know, elderly house call services. There's companies that that that have this speaking business. Here I am right now speaking to you. And there's lots of many different things. You can you can teach.

You can be an OSCE examiner. Yes. Sure. I mean, do you never consider these as side gigs, but they are something that complement what you normally do, and you get paid for them.

Right? Private medical consulting, there's lots of companies out there looking for it. This is I'm just showing you a list, an exhaustive list that just showed up on ChatGPT. That's all it was, and it's over seventy of them. Okay? So this is this is this is something that if you don't know where to start and you're not sure what would actually interest you, it's something that you can easily look through and say, hey. You know what?

Maybe I am interested in in cruise ship medicine. Why not? Right? I have a colleague who does, expedition. She's an expedition doctor for, it's really a cruise in the end, but it's a fancy, very adventurous cruise where they go close to the North Pole and they've got two hundred people on board, and she's the doctor for these two hundred people. And so this is something that she does two or three times a year, and it's something she enjoys doing, but she's also she also has a family practice and does some emerg shifts on the side. So this is just something that you can consider. There's so many things out there. What makes what kind of triggers you to think, hey. I wonder if I can do that.

Dr. Khatib’s Side Gig Portfolio

Now this will be a personal talk because I'm sharing what I went through. What I went through is I felt super stressed out, wanted to leave, but at the same time but, no. You're not you're not you're not going to leave. You enjoy medicine. You enjoy emergency medicine. What else can you do?

So I work in a stress test clinic. I work at a cardiac stress test clinic where they hire family doctors, emergency doctors, and cardiologists to just supervise a stress test clinic that is happening anyway. They just need a physician in the building. The physician in the building needs to know how to do ACLS, so they just need an ACLS certification.

I do medical speaking and consulting on the side. I work in my emergency department as their business manager, surgical assistant. I do some teaching, events medicine. Voice over work is just is a hobby that pays a very, very small amount, but it's a hobby.

I, am a landlord for a condo, and, I do patch calls for paramedics, and I teach at U of T. This sounds like a ton. And you're like, what?

How does she get through all of this?

In reality, a lot of these things are only once or twice a year. Right? But they do still feel like a variety.

So when they interrupt my, interrupt is probably too strong of a word, but they pause my many emerg shifts in a row and make me do something else.

And, you know, at my third emerg shift, I'm feeling at the at the end of the third emerg shift, I'm feeling irritable, I'm feeling tired, I, you know, I can't believe I have another shift tomorrow. But if I have three emerg shifts in a row and then a stress test clinic or an event medicine where I'm the doctor at some concert, and then after that, I do some more emerg shifts, then it's not as bad. It just that is my experience. That's how it felt for me.

Now I do have colleagues who are family doctors or who are endocrinologists who have, clinic three to four days a week. Right? How are they going to do this? These are events or these are things that are set up months in advance.

For example, the Taylor Swift concert in November. I knew about that eight months in advance that I would be the doctor at that show. So it's not it's I knew that well in advance. I was able to carve out that time to ensure that I am leaving time for things that I also enjoy in addition to my regular career.

Again, not an exit strategy. None of these are an exit strategy, and really none of these pay as much as working my clinical day. But I know that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

And so I know that this will not only make me a better physician during my, emergency medicine shifts, but also make me stay longer in emergency medicine, not an exit strategy.

Don't view them as an exit strategy. See them as a longevity strategy to reignite your passion for medicine and hopefully prevent burnout. It worked for me. I really hope it works for you.

Do speak to your colleagues, though, because this is how I learned about this. I've got so many colleagues that do so many different things and things that you wouldn't call side gigs, but really anything other than your main, your main gig is something that you're doing on the side. Right? So I have a colleague that does hyper hyperbaric medicine. Okay?

So, basically, they're the consultant for a hyperbaric clinic, and they ended up to in order to do that, there was, like, a four-day online course that they did, and that's it. And then they were trained. And then they automatically after that four day course, were qualified to apply for hyperbaric medicine physicians. This is a friend of mine who's a family doctor.

Another, colleague of mine who's a specialist is a personal trainer as well. Another colleague of mine who's an, emergency physician, she's an expert witness. And the way she got there is she was the chief of the department, was asked to be an expert witness once on a case, and then from then on, she was on a list and continued.

Endoscopy, anesthetist. You do not have to be an anesthetist. You could be an emergency doctor. You just ask for a CPSO request to, to enhance your practice and it really doesn't take very long. You can do admin positions. You can locum in other areas just to, number one, get a taste of how other people are, doing the job or maybe you can learn best practice. So it makes you a better doctor even in your regular in your regular job.

A friend of mine who's an ICU doctor who, was the CMIO, the chief medical information officer at one of the hospitals I used to work at, became a professional career coach now in addition to his ICU work. And then the cruise ship doctor, I spoke to you about this. Now what if you just don't know any colleagues who are doing side gigs? Where do you even start?

How to Get Started: Steps to Explore a Side Gig

Honestly, if you wanted to do a cruise ship doctor, gig, you can email the cruise line your CV, and that's how one of my colleagues got started. And that's how things get started is if you're interested in this, don't feel paralyzed by the number of decisions or the number of seventy-five different side gigs that ChatGPT will give you. Ask around what other people do. Look at what your passions are.

So that's how you get started. Identify your interests, your skills. You don't know what they are? That's okay.

Look at the list of the seventy-five side gigs and look at what you feel you would enjoy.

Evaluate where whether this would even fit in your career, okay, and what the risks are for your career if you do fit this in. Seek mentorship if you know someone who's been doing this. Find the necessary certifications if needed even. A lot of these things you don't need extra certification.

Start small in your practice. See if it fits.

With time management and continuously evaluating and adjusting, you can make this happen. Okay? I know it feels so difficult because it's like, yeah, but I have this much paperwork. How am I going to get through all of this? That's the point of it is that because things are weighing you down, we need to reassess how you're going to make this into a marathon and not a sprint.

And it's important if you're here today, it means that this is important to you. It means that it's time to sit with yourself and make a list and think, how am I going to get started on this? And try your best. I know it's easier said than done, but no decision paralysis, guys, because decision paralysis just makes you makes future you five years from now go, oh my god. I wish I'd started this five years ago. Well, it's five years ago right now. Why don't we get started now? Sit and evaluate.

Not feasible for you, that's okay.

You sat and you evaluated. That's the important thing, is to actually think whether this will help you, might not help everyone, but you've actually given it a good try or thought before you dismissed it.

Side gigs portfolio, honestly, half of these, I just learned from colleagues. I just found out from colleagues. For the business manager position, I spoke to the previous business manager of our group. For the stress test clinic, it was a colleague.

For the voice over work, it's something that I've been enjoying as a hobby since I was even a teenager. And so so it's something that I thought, hey. I wonder if I can add this to, like, my medical side. And so children's books that talk about, that talk about medicine or teach children about the human body is some of the voice over work that I do.

So just keep that in mind. List your list your ideas, your thoughts, and what you like to do. Opportunities are out there. They're endless.

Actively keep an eye out. Ask your colleagues. Reach out. And please don't have the paralysis of the I'll work on it later-itis.

We don't we definitely don't want that.

We talked about this, assess your capacity, prioritize, optimize it, and then maintain the balance if it will suit you.

Why consider a side gig? We talked about this. Now I really want to talk to you about this part.

Future proofing your career. This is a big one for me. So side gigs can serve as a safeguard against potential changes in both the health care industry. Right?

You know, we all have a fear of AI taking over. Right?

And it gives you options and flexibility for the long term.

Dr. Khatib’s Personal Story & Future-Proofing Your Career

Now, if you thought that was personal, this is more personal.

Unfortunately, in November, just a few months ago, I was in a terrible, terrible, terrible accident.

I was thrown off a horse onto rocks, became unconscious, GCS3, intubated, had three brain bleeds and multiple skull fractures, and I'm very lucky to be alive.

I'm very lucky to be able to speak, to not be paralyzed.

And of course, we all, you know, looked into disability insurance before, you know, I have disability insurance. It happens to be with RBC. But as you guys know, disability insurance, takes three months to kick in. You have to be not working for three months for it to fully kick in.

So what do you do in these three months for someone who loves to work so much? First of all, I'm okay. I'm recovering. I'm doing better. It's actually partly why I have these weird looking glasses on to, help mitigate the very strong and bright lights, because that's still an issue.

But, you know, this can happen to anyone.

This was such a freak accident, and it could happen to anyone. And this is something that, you know, we need to make sure we have that future proofing of our career.

And with disability insurance only kicking in three months later and only if, you know, you're not working at all, does it fully kick in, then what do you do in that time? And even beyond that time, what if you're not well? What if you're not back? And I'm still, you know, not fully fully back, to being able to work the same the same number of hours that I used to work before.

And that's where my side gigs came in.

And I was so glad that I used side gigs for me before were to prevent burnout.

But in this case, it was really it you know, lots of people were like, oh, you must be so frustrated and depressed being at home, not being able to do anything.

And sure, of course, the first part of recovery was that. You had to do that.

But the fact that I had side gigs meant that I can go and ease back into work slower using other aspects of medicine that are not as tiring, not as all-consuming as emergency medicine or family medicine or whatever type of field or medicine you do. And I was able to work on my other types of side gigs very slowly and very gradually and still haven't gone back to my full spectrum of work.

But the fact that I had this helped me realize that the future proofing and full proofing of our career is really one of the main reasons now I do side gigs. It's not just the supplemental income and the and the and the burnout prevention, but the full proofing of your career and future proofing of your career.

It can serve as a safeguard against potential changes in both your health and your field, gives you options and flexibility for the long term.

So keep that in mind. The benefits are vast, and this is not something you're signing on to forever. You can always try it out and change.

If I show you what I've tried and the different types of medicine or even side gigs that I've tried and I just thought to myself, no. This is not something meant for me, and you just switch. And you know what? We're really privileged to be able to do that or to have the opportunity to do that.

And as MDs, there's a lot out there that we can, that we can take advantage of and that we can work on, to help enhance both our professional growth and personal growth.

Your Journey Begins Here

Reiterating, where do you begin? You begin by identifying your passions, evaluating what are you good at or what do you like even.

Consider what financial goals you have and realize that this is not the exit. This is a compliment or supplement.

Assess your time and availability, and definitely ask your colleagues and ask around.

It's no longer the time where people don't talk about money. We are slowly changing. We're slowly talking more about money and more about our burnout and more about, what we want to do to enhance our career. And these the side gigs and additions to your income and additions to your personal and professional fulfillment need to be part of this discussion and need to be the norm.

My take home points for you today is, yes, they are there are many benefits, supplemental income, skill development. It prevents burnout and causes a lot of professional networking and skill development. Really, you are here to future proof your career in terms of your health changes, your industry fluctuations, and you know what? It's just enjoyable. It is so enjoyable that after working in the emerg for three days, I go and I work in a stress test clinic. It's a completely different environment.

And three days of working in emerg, I'm like, ugh, I don't want to come back here. And then I work in the stress test clinic. And then I'm like, hey, I missed my emerg shifts again. So, it just takes you out of the routine or takes you out of the chaos that is whether it's emergency medicine or your family medicine clinic or your specialty clinic and then puts you back in it a little bit later. And if you realize that, you know, again, a marathon, not a sprint, I truly think this could help a lot of people. Although might not be for everyone, it is at least worth exploring and worth future proofing your career.

I do hope that this has helped clarify some items, and I have left enough time for a Q&A on purpose because I know there will be a lot of great discussion.

And now if you do want to contact Dr.Bill, it's sales@dr-bill.ca. And, I hope that this has helped.

Again, I'm Dr. Khatib, an emergency physician, and other hats that I'm very happy and proud that I have, taken up.

Thank you so much for your attention.

Q&A

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Thanks very much, Dr. Khatib. I there were, you know, absolutely a lot of very powerful messages, in that presentation. And, there are a few questions in the chat.

We can maybe spend some time working through those.

Do you want to do you want me to read them out, or or do you have access to Let me take a look here.

Okay.

Dr. Nour Khatib

One attendee says, one way to think about income is supplementary instead of supplementary, then alternative.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Not all investments will go up concurrently, but the portfolio or well-being, I love that. Overall, would go up. That makes perfect sense. Like the stock market, my favorite market to watch. But, basically, yeah, your stock market will go up and down, but over a twenty, thirty, forty-year period, your career, the trajectory is upwards. So that that's beautiful. I like that.

Great list, but how do we find these opportunities?

Absolutely great question. And I had that same question when I heard my colleagues working in these opportunities.

How do I get into these opportunities?

How? I asked those same colleagues who are in those opportunities. That's how that's how I got into them, honestly. I just asked colleagues who are already in them. But if there's things that you absolutely are not are not sure, like, okay, I want to do cruise ship medicine. When I when I thought about doing cruise ship medicine a few years ago, all I did was send my CV in to Holland America.

That's all I did, and then I got contacted by a recruiter. So I think the first step is to find out what your passions are, what you're interested in, and then go from there. And sometimes your colleagues have already, have already gone from there.

Someone here is asking, is it possible to have this list? Absolutely.

Honestly, that list of seventy five items was from ChatGPT. So if you just type in on ChatGPT, give me an exhaustive list of, of side gigs that medical doctors can do, you will, you will be able to get seventy five, if not more, of those.

Anything I'm missing here, Chris? I don't know if I'm able to catch up here.

Chris Handscomb (Dr.Bill) 

Yeah. There there was a there's a question here about, their conferences, on nonclinical opportunities for physicians. So curious if you've ever attended these, heard of them, any comments about about the value that they add?

Dr. Khatib

I I've not attended any of them. I actually would love to attend. And this is how you find out about things, guys. You find out from other colleagues, so thanks for that message.

I haven't attended one. I'd be interested to. I am wondering if in the US, it might be more, like, business driven and private sector driven, which you know what? There's there they are still opportunities.

And if it's an opportunity for a Canadian to work, to work virtually, then that's I think that's fine. But, no, I have not attended them. But if anyone here has attended them, please message in the chat. It would be lovely to hear what you think as well.

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

And next, there's a question.

Is there a blueprint to becoming a physician adviser for startups, or is it very situational or opportunistic?

And are there any tangible steps, that can be taken to pursue this?

Dr. Nour Khatib

Excellent question. Okay. So a year ago, I never, like, thought I would be a physician adviser in a startup. Like, it never really crossed my mind. How do you even get involved with this? Right?

I had a colleague. Again, everything boils down to, like, just meeting people or learning about them, or learning through other physicians. Right? But, let's and this is what you're doing right now.

This is literally what you're doing. You are learning about these opportunities from a colleague. Hello. I'm your colleague.

So, basically, I learned from a colleague that he does physician advisor work, and I didn't really ask him about it. I was I wasn't really sure if it was for me. And then I learned about this, this company, this Halo Health, h a l o, Health. Basically, it's a company, and I don't mean to be endorsing it or anything.

I think there's many out there. It's not just this one, but this one is specifically for dentists and physicians. And it's just it's a membership where you join and they look into startups and, they look into startups that, that that physicians can invest in. So it's really an angel investing kind of company, and they and they look into, startups that physicians can invest in.

And these startups sometimes ask the physicians for their advice. So I heard about this from a colleague. I got in touch with one of the startups, and I learned what they had to do. When they realized that, hey, you know, they'd start you would be very surprised to, to hear that, like, a lot of the things you do every day, they have no idea what you do every day.

They have no idea how difficult it is for you to get patients to remember appointments, to cancel on time, to all these things. Right? There are startups out there that are simply working on making that easier, but they need your voice. They need to hear from you.

And so one of the startups asked me to just join them on some of the some of the meetings and answer some of these, for us, would be very basic questions. Right? And they just needed answers for them. So, that's definitely, like, something that I never thought I would do.

Heard it from a colleague or just, you know, Google that Halo Health company or other angel investor companies, not just necessarily this one. And it's like a membership that you can, that you can sign up to and learn more.

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Thanks, Dr. Khatib.

Okay. So next, there's a question, about the contract or the kind of the rules around the concerts work that you've done in the past.

And someone's curious if pediatricians would potentially qualify, based on what you know about that.

Dr. Nour Khatib

Yeah. So, I would have used you in a Taylor Swift concert because there's a lot of young folks there. Absolutely. I would think anyone that can that that has done ACLS, like, like the adult, cardiac life support course should be fine. It's whatever you're comfortable with.

And so how do you get into that? So the company that I worked for, that I currently I work for, and I believe it's, like, e EMS concert or something, or I believe that's again, these some of these side gigs, I only do, like, twice a year.

So you can and I'm trying to find the name right now for you, but, there's many different types of companies, and they're called event medicine companies. That's what they are. They're event medicine. So if you look for event medicine oh, it's called Accent EMS.

Sorry. That's the one that I it's event medical services. So all these event medicine companies, they actually, try to fight for it or they bid for the Rogers Center. And whichever company wins for that concert is the one that takes care of that concert.

So if my, if the company that I worked for, the Accent Medicine, happens to win this concert, then they asked for doctors to join.

They have their own roster of doctors, which a colleague of mine kind of added me to. And, but they also look for people, like, on their website, you can go into careers and, and add your and add your name and send your CV. There are so many of these companies, event medicine.

I remember when I used to work as an emerg physician at Sunnybrook.

We simply just got an email from our chief at the time saying that the event, the Carabana event in the summer was looking for physicians and that was it.

Now, it's really I'm sure it's open to any physician who can do ACLS and if you also know peds, then that would be a big bonus, especially in big events, where it's very crowded.

You might not want, you know, an academic emergency physician who only deals with adults.

Chris Handscomb (Dr.Bill)

Yeah. I could see that absolutely being a powerful add on, before that. So you you've mentioned a few times throughout the presentation and in in some of these answers the power of your social and professional network in terms of learning about some of these opportunities. And maybe, you know, I think that's a really important point and something that, you know, you also talked about, you know, a willingness to talk about money, a willingness to talk about different opportunities. And I think that can be an extremely powerful way to learn about things. You know, a small example, I was speaking with one of our, physician customers back in the summer, and I was telling the story about how my son was attending overnight camp. And we got a phone call because he knocked out a few of his two front teeth.

And I was just sharing how impressed we were, with the care he received and, the doctor at the camp who was there for the week did such a great job. And then they're like, oh, wait. Like, I could be a doctor at a summer camp for a week. You know, like, how cool is that?

And, you know, the question about the pediatrician reminded me of that. And this individual actually ended up reaching out to a few overnight camps, to be on staff for, you know, one week in a summer. You know, seeing the kids have fun, being there to support them when it's needed. So I just you know, reiterating the power of your social network and your professional network and not being afraid to ask.

You know, what else what else are you involved in? Can be very cool. There's a couple questions in here. I'm going to group them together. So it's, any strategies or things you can recommend on getting into, the voice overs or voice acting, as well as the writing component, you know, different areas people could potentially reach out to our people, to help, provide some insight on that.

Dr. Nour Khatib

Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah. And I and I agree with you. It's like it's really the power of networking, and it's something that we have not been taught nor have we really experienced in medicine as much.

We do networking. When I was in my finance life before medicine, networking is just a regular thing that is done. And we don't do this as much in in medicine. And I can tell you why.

It's because we're all so overwhelmed with all the work, and we want to balance life and family and medicine and all of that. And the thing is, though, to enjoy your career, there has to be a social aspect. There has to be a social aspect, and that could be networking.

Now in terms of, you were the the last question, I believe, you were asking me about the for the voice acting or whatnot. So that's something that a that a friend of mine, needed a voice over for, for one of his, companies and asked me to do it. And then all of a sudden, I land on voices.com, and I, put a demo in there. Hence, why I have, like, a bit of a fancy microphone here and now can do voiceovers, for commercials or audiobooks or whatnot. So it's, if you're really interested in it, it's something called voices.com. It's a Canadian company, but it serves worldwide.

It's a Canadian company based from London, Ontario at voices.com, and you can sign up to be a voice over person and just audition for things. It's quite incredible, the opportunities out there. It's just you just need to hear them. And sometimes it just takes hearing it once. And I really hope that this hearing it once right now actually makes a difference.

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Okay. And next, kind of changing gears a little bit here.

Have you ever encountered any risks to being involved in side gigs?

You know, not felt comfortable doing something, or if you felt there was ever, like, a legal conflict or regulatory conflict of any kind that you maybe you felt you needed to turn down, an opportunity?

Dr. Nour Khatib

Yeah. So amazing question. Great question. And I wonder if the, question is related to I'm just going to quickly look at my list of side gigs here. I wonder if you are, thinking of the stress test clinic. And I have a feeling that that's what the question is. If you want a message in the chat, to let me know, then please let me know if that is what you're, discussing.

But for example, at the stress test clinic, I've spoken to family doctors about it. I've spoken to family doctors about, working at the stress test clinic. And what it is a cardiac stress test clinic. You have patients who are running on a treadmill or getting medications by IV in in order to stress their heart, and they're we're testing their hearts with ECGs. So why would me as a family doctor or me as an emergency doctor be okay doing that? Shouldn't it be a cardiologist?

So I worked in a stress test clinic before that required okay. Thank you for clarifying.

That required us to write the report themselves. That is not something is that is comfortable, and that is not I did not work for that company because they wanted us to write the report themselves. So then I worked in a stress test clinic that wanted us simply to supervise. So if a patient has symptoms such as significant chest pain, trouble breathing, they need another puff of their Ventolin, then you can attend to them.

You can answer their questions or whatnot. But once a patient is really not well or and this happens very rarely in the stress, very, very rarely, Or if the tech is not comfortable doing the test, then you, you know, you then your next step is if patient is really not well is you call 911. So your responsibilities is as much as you are comfortable with. So it's whatever you are comfortable with.

In terms of concert medicine, because, the person did clarify their question there. In terms of concert medicine, as an emergency physician, I felt comfortable dealing with, dealing with, you know, emergencies in the outside world, but at the same time, you have to know your limits. Okay? So how do you know your limits?

For example, I had a patient who came in after having a seizure during the concert. Right? I have limits. I can you know, make sure that they're breathing appropriately. They I do have a bag mask valve in in the in the room. I know what I have. I know what I don't have, and then you call 911. So it's up to where you're comfortable.

Right? And so you have to really ask what your responsibilities are for these side gigs so you can decide what you're comfortable with.

Now there's another side gig I had mentioned, the endoscopy one, for example.

I thought to myself, how is it that my emerg med colleagues are doing endoscopy? Isn't this for an anesthetist? How are they comfortable doing that? So when I looked into it, it turned out that with the CPSO, as long as you, get a letter from your chief and explain that you do procedural sedation, which is very similar to what they do in endoscopies, then you are okay to do it. So you had to actually go through hoops to make sure that you are allowed and safe to do this, including a letter from your chief to make sure that you're allowed and safe to do this. So every side gig will have its own, both risks and both things that you have to consider as to whether you're comfortable.

Okay. I love that next question. How do you know, if you're getting a fair compensation for your side gigs?

A lot of times, like, I compared it with other colleagues from other areas, and I'm very comfortable asking people about money. And that's something that I think everybody needs to start slowly getting comfortable doing. I know it's not easy. But you have to think to yourself, is it fair to you? Right? Like, you know, it's not going to be as much as clinical. But is it fair to you and compare it to the amount of work you're doing and compare it to the risks that you're doing?

For example, a concert medicine shift that is between, let's say, 4:30pm – 11:30pm, less than an emerge shift in number of hours, but it's also less than an emerg shift in the number in the amount of pay.

You can always negotiate. Right? Especially if the people on the other end are getting your information and, you know, they're getting your they're not getting that one hour. They're getting your fifteen years of education.

Right? Think of it this way. And if if the if the side gig doesn't feel right for you in terms of the amount, let's say there let's say you don't have any you don't know anyone to compare it to, then you just move on from it if it's not something you like. But do remember that you're not only doing this for the supplemental income.

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Yeah. I I think that's a great point is, you know, what how else is this work adding to my well-being?

So another question here. So there's an individual, one of the attendees, who's developed their own EMR in Ontario. It's very exciting.

But the question is more, about, you know, do you know or do you know any places that they could go, to meet, people involved in investing in health care and investing in different, maybe new products or services?

Dr. Nour Khatib

Like, to find investors?

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Yeah. I believe that’s where the question's coming from.

Dr. Nour Khatib

I think in something that you've developed and something innovative like this, then it would be, angel investors or venture capitalists as you've already mentioned. And there are groups that simply, you know, ask you to come and pitch for them.

There's two groups that I know. The one I've already mentioned, the Halo Health one, where just in the last event, we had four companies that similar to yours were just something that someone developed, and some of them were doctors who developed them. And they came and they pitched their products just like Dragon's Den to a group of doctors and dentists.

And I think that would be your best bet to find investors is to find a venture capitalist/angel investment group like that in order to get more of the investors.

Chris Handscomb (Dr.Bill)

And I know, just from personal experience, some friends who have gone down that path.

And I know when they're looking for, you know, funding to raise a series a or b or c, they they reach out. Like, they Google, you know, angel investors, venture capital firms in the area, and it's really just getting on the Internet. And, a lot of these firms, like, they want you to come in and pitch your product and tell them about it. But it often does come down to, kind of searching online.

So here here's an interesting question. So it's about how did you feel comfortable delving into a new sidekick? I worry I don't have enough training in some fields, and I will get in over my head. So to me, the essence is, like, the first hurdle of saying, like, yes. I I want to do this.

Dr. Nour Khatib

Yep. So I have to say so out of the list that I showed you, a lot of them were just, like, for example, concert medicine, dealing with emergencies. This felt like this felt like what I would do, just a different location. So I felt comfortable doing that.

Of course, in the first concert I went to, I was terrified. But then I was like, oh, my limits are my limits, and then I call 911. So I kept reminding myself of that. You're not you're not you're not alone.

You really are not alone. A specialist is always a phone call away. You've got a ton of paramedics in the concert with you, and you've got three nurses with you. You're not alone.

Plus, you do up to your limit and you call 911. You do what whatever is best for the patient, and, you know, if you weren't there, then they wouldn't be getting this kind of standard of care.

So that for concert medicine, I was comfortable doing that. For the stress test clinic, I was initially very worried about that. But then when I went and I realized the type of questions being asked, it was very, you know, most of the time in a stress test clinic, I'm only asked every six or seven shifts, I'm asked one or two questions. You they cannot do these tests without a doctor physically in the building. Okay? And oftentimes, these cardiologists are doing their clinic on the other end of the building, and they're supervising stress tests on the other side of the building. They just need a doctor in the physical building to do the stress test.

And so over the stress test, I was very worried because I didn't know what it was about. But I when I went, I realized, oh, the questions were not that difficult, and, and you don't get very many questions. And again, my limits are my limits. It's a clinic.

If something terrible is happening, you call 911. Or sometimes, I thought to myself, oh, I wonder if this ECG is something I should worry about. Let's call the patient's cardiologist. And so far, I have had no trouble finding a cardiologist that would help me on the phone.

So just, you know, you have to kind of you have to try. We can't be paralyzed unless this is something that is completely not in your field.

Like, I wouldn't like a like a psychiatrist who never has to read an ECG ever, then that doesn't make sense for someone to be in a stress test clinic. Right? But if it's something that you're used to in your regular practice and you can kind of extrapolate, then that makes sense. In terms of this sorry, go ahead.

Oh, no. I saw an amazing question here for the CMPA, and it got a thumbs up. I'm going to give it another thumbs up too. Great question.

And it's something you can always ask the CMPA. Does this fit with my whatever your code is for CMPA? Now if you look at, like, my other, a lot of the my side gigs are nonmedical. Right?

Like, my business manager position in the emergency department. I don't need to know any medicine. I don't do any patient care. Right?

My voice over is no patient care. Real estate, no patient care. Right?

A good half of them is no patient care. So, obviously, no CMPA involved. Now what about the ones with patient care?

Whether it's the stress test clinic or the concert medicine, if it's within your like, there is no code for the CMPA for concert medicine. It's supposed to be kind of like and it definitely before I added anything, I spoke to the CMPA, to ask, but, but it's as long as, like, your, your field makes sense with what you're doing. We're not like, you know, like, we're like, when a family doctor switches to become a sleep medicine doctor, does that mean that they are that they are not like, that they have to completely change their CMPA role into a respirologist?

No. It's, it's it just it's kind of, you know, you're working within the your scope up to a limit. You're not you're not a respirologist now. You don't have to have a CMPA code for respirology, but you can call the CMPA and ask.

So I would honestly just call and ask, and at the same time, I like, emergency medicine is a big field that involves concert medicine, that involves looking after people, that are that are in that could be in a stress test. So, basically, in a supervisory role.

Not a cardiologist, but rather, I can attend to emergencies in that clinic. Do you if you know what I mean?

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Well, that that's and it's we're already at an hour. Two minutes to the hour. And I think we did get through the majority of the questions. I know there's one last one. Did maybe a fun question. Did you get to see any of the concerts that you worked at?

Dr. Nour Khatib

Yeah. So it depends on the concert. For Lady Gaga, I was able to watch it for a bit. I was able to watch it for a good fifteen minutes or so, but it depends on because don't you've got twenty to thirty thousand fans in the crowd.

And so you can imagine there are medical emergencies or not so emergencies. Hey, I have a headache or whatnot. Right? That could be like some people come in just to ask for a Tylenol, and that is a visit.

Right? Just asking for a Tylenol here, sign this consent, and here's your Tylenol, Or someone coming in with a seizure. So, like, it it depends on what you get. Right?

So it's, so it depends on the concert, depends on what you get. If it's a concert like Metallica, where the you know, it you might be you might be busier than a concert that is, you know, a children's concert of some sort. You know? So it all depends. But, yes, I got to see, some of the concert.

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

That's that's great. Glad you got to see some.

Well, I I'm going to wrap it up just with a few kind of brief comments. And, again, thank you for this presentation. I there's been many, many remarks in the chat. You know, thank you for your stories and sharing this.

And I know a a core theme that I'm taking away from this presentation is really about mindset, you know, and moving from I don't have time to do that to should I make time? Will it make sense for me to make time for this? You know, and I think, you know, a lot of very powerful messages were shared, but, you know, starting small. You know, what what's something small I could do a couple times a year, to get your feet wet? Dip your toe in the water and see if it's something that you enjoy.

So, again, just on, on behalf of of Dr.Bill, OntarioMD, thank you very much, for being here, going through this presentation, and certainly, the engaged audience, appreciates you being here as well. And a reminder, this the recording for this will be shared through both OntarioMD, and Dr.Bill. It takes about a week or two to get out, so be patient with us, but, we will get it out. And again, thank you very much.

Dr. Nour Khatib

Thank you for having me, and, thanks for those excellent questions.

Chris Hanscomb (Dr.Bill)

Wonderful. 

Paul Roscoe (OntarioMD)

That concludes our presentation for today. Thank you, Dr.Bill, for this great talk.

Please do fill out the evaluation for this session. The link is available in the chat. As a reminder, the recording will be sent out next week, or you can find it on the website under OMD vendor spotlights.

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Thank you everyone for joining us.