The Internet is a never-ending source of discovery and fascination for me as I scour sites and blogs to write about interesting topics. I can see how easy it is to get distracted and led astray!

However, in my meanderings, I did come across several valuable resources in the last few weeks:

Physician Renaissance Network - for doctors with non-clinical careers and interests. It's a catalog of job opportunities, reports on physicians in non-clinical positions, links to educational resources for physicians, and networking opportunities. It's a bare bones but helpful website.

The Student Doctor Network - geared more to medical and other healthcare professional students, there are some articles of interest, along with resources.

Non-clinical careers and opportunities for physicians -  a blog maintained by Dr. Joseph Kim a self-described physician with a passion for technology, public health, and health education. The blog lists job opportunities along with articles of interest and resources for physicians contemplating a career change. 

High Impact and High Value Medical Innovation - a compelling slide show by Zen Chu, active medical device entrepreneur and investor and Co-founder, 3DM Inc. The slide show describes how innovation within healthcare requires sufficient impact to result in increased efficacy at the bedside or in the clinical setting. The business concepts highlighted in the presentation certainly appear to be solid advice.

An old favorite is MomMD - a resource for women in medicine. It's a venting corner, a sharing community and a trove of resources for women physicians.

Improved Lives - a new blog (somewhat similar to its counterpart British PsyBlog that I enjoy) that focuses on practical applications of Positive Psychology and happiness. Here is a cool little test I found on the website, at New Test: Personal Growth Commitment (BTW - my score was 48 too!)

And finally, if you are serious about physician career change, try the SEAK conference on Non-Clinical Careers. If you go, please make a point of saying hello to me as I am a keynote speaker on the first day! I'd just love to meet you.

Okay - that's enough. I hate being bombarded with too many things at once.

Please share any content-rich resources about physician career change that you're familiar with. And even programs you or colleagues have had success with.

Have fun daydreaming about your future!

Yesterday I came across a new resource on the Web, Medical Career Change, that appears to be a handy compilation of articles, websites and tools for physicians considering a change of career.

The author or authors don't seem to be identified and the blog describes itself as "a directory of resources for doctors interested in investigating non-traditional (clinical or non clinical) career paths".

The blog categories are:

• General advice about changing careers 
• Career resources
• Adventure medicine
• Crowd doctor
• Cruise doctor
• Investment banking
• Law
• Management consultancy
• Media
• Medical relief
• Medicine overseas
• The armed forces
• Pharmaceutical industry
• Other options
• Career change conferences

Crowd doctor??? Well, that's a new one for me!

I was pleased to see that SEAK's 5th Annual 2008 Non-Clinical Careers for Physicians Conference (October 4-5 2008 on Cape Cod MA) was listed -- I am honored to be an invited keynote speaker there, talking on the topic of "Career Shifting for Physicians: How to Ease the Transition". And then I get to be "roaming faculty" available for mentoring and offering whatever insights I have to share.

If you are a physician contemplating a career change, please come and join us in beautiful Cape Cod in the fall! I'd love to meet you in person :-)

To my readers

I wish you, your families, your support team and your fans a festive season of peace, repose, reflection and celebration.

Whether this is your holiday or not, I believe we can all find joy in the spirit of giving, sharing and community that prevails at this time of the year.

May it be our precious charge to embrace our roles in promoting the good will at all other times of the year!

Thank you for your support. 

With my warmest wishes

Philippa

Having been swept up last weekend in the emotionally gripping, uplifting and outstanding documentary film "War Dance", I was delighted to learn from several sources last week about a helpful way to ease (a teeny bit!) the discomfort of recognizing just how fortunate most of the children that I know are (including my own) and being powerless to remedy the brutality forced upon some children.

Here's a way to share some of your wealth, and have a bit rub off on a child you know.

The program is One Laptop Per Child -- Give one, Get one and it's only here until November 26th.

How does OLPC work?

For $399, you will be donating the revolutionary XO laptop (the "$100 laptop") to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life, in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the value of your laptop) AND you receive one of these totally cool kid-indestructible laptops for a child you know. This is a definition of "Win-Win".

Ours will be a birthday present for my daughter who turns 5 in a couple of weeks, and is beginning to show an interest in computers. I can't wait to begin playing with it!

Remember I wrote a while back about Health 2.0?

A conference on Health 2.0 has just concluded in San Francisco (sadly I didn't attend) so you might be seeing more of that term for a while. It seems timely to let you know once again what people mean by it!

It may seem like an obscure buzz word still, but the Economist wrote a blurb earlier this month on the subject of Health 2.0 that I thought might provide extra insight.

A quick reminder: Health 2.0 is the term given to "user-generated healthcare" -- all that information and those exhanges of ideas shared through blogs, online support groups, podcasts, discussion boards, user-created videos ("see my c-section live!") uploaded to YouTube etc..

The topics and forums are legion - chronic disease support groups, infertility discussion boards, parenting networks, social communities for healthcare providers such as Within3, Yahoo groups for medical practice management, Q and A sites where physicians answer patient questions. The list is enormous.

I believe it is vital as a practitioner or business owner in healthcare to educate yourself about this cyber explosion, in order to serve as an informed guide to what is valuable and what should be set aside.

It also behooves you to know about this huge trend, as you might just find yourself being rated and scored by the many sites and blogs that provide an opportunity for "consumer" input!