Medical Spa MD: Physician community of skin clinics, laser centers, plastic surgeons, dermatologists and aesthetic doctors practicing nonsurgical cosmetic medicine.
I went to Medfusion last year and was really impressed. This year I was blown away.
I got back from the Medical Fusion Conference last night and I wanted to set down my thoughts while they're still fresh in my mind, so here are some of my take-aways kind of as a stream of consciousness.
The Aria is a nice hotel for conferences and the Sky Suites are sweet. From the time that I parked the car (I drove down) I didn't step foot outside of the hotel until I left on Sunday. (I've been to Vegas a lot so no need to dawdle.)
The conference always surprises me with how savvy the physicians are who attend. If you're looking to keep you head down and love to toil in obscurity, this is not the conference for you.
I'll be speaking (twice) at the non-clincal Medical Fusion Conference on November 11-13th in Las Vegas.
The Medical Fusion Conference is a unique event that allows clinical physicians the opportunity to learn about unique niches where they can apply their clinical knowledge and gain real control of your income and lifestyle. (Isn't that why most docs are in cosmetic medicine in the first place?)
I've been to a lot of aesthetic and cosmetic conferences and trade shows, but this conference is different. I went to it last year and the result was that we launched Freelance MD!
Medical Fusion is purposely small. It allows you to sit down (multiple times) with any or all of the speakers and pick their brains. (If you've been to any of the big conferences you know that a the end of a talk or session there's a pack of people around the speaker for ten minutes and that's about it. Not at Medical Fusion.)
Who is Medical Fusion for?
Any physician who wants more control of their income, career, and lifestyle.
A plastic surgeon who want's to learn how to invest in real estate.
An internal medicine doc who want's to retire and write a book.
A dermatologist who want's to leave clinical practice and consult to big pharma.
A family practitioner who want's to leave Medicare and Medicate and start a concierge practice.
A surgeon who want's to make sure his retirement is secure.
An ER doc who want's to travel and work internationally.
A Pediatrician who want's to publish a children's book.
A cosmetic surgeon who's ready to grow his cosmetic practice or medical spa. ; )
Any doctor who's thinking of leaving clinical practice.
Any doctor who want's to spend more time with your family and kids.
Any doctor who's looking to increase their income.
Any doctor who's looking for a change.
And that's just a part. In short, if you're a physician who want's to take control of your life, this is the conference for you.
I'll be speaking on two topics; how to start/add/run and grow a cosmetic practice, and how to use online technologies to make money as a physician.
There will also be speakers on personal finance, investing, product development, and a bunch of other stuff including concierge medicine which a lot of you have expressed interest in. (More about that in another post.)
Register before October 10th and reserve your room at the beautiful Aria Resort for a special discounted room rate of only $179 plus resort fee. These rooms are regularly around $400. (You must book your room at the Aria prior to October 10th to lock in these special rates!)
Discover all of the options available to you as a physician.
Medical Fusion isn't just another conference where you're sitting around and listening to an endless parade of speakers that lecture from behind a podium. Instead, you'll have every opportunity to talk to any speaker you're interested in learning more from. Our Accelerator Sessions are a perfect chance to make connections and deep-dive into the areas that are of interest to you.
At every Medical Fusion Conference we attempt to cover the most pertinent topics for clinical physicians who are attempting to branch out from their clinical careers.
For 2011, we've once again assembled a stellar faculty comprised of leaders in many diverse niches from around the country, and have included many hot topics that physicians should be exposed to in this ever-changing healthcare environment.
Our 2011 faculty list was recently published on Freelance MD, but we've added a few more names so I've decided to list our entire 2011 Medical Fusion Conference faculty once again. Many of these faculty members are authors on Freelance MD so you can read about their backgrounds and perspectives. I'm also listing our agenda below so you can get an idea of what's going to be discussed at this year's event.
The 2011 Medical Fusion Conference is November 11-13, 2011 and space is limited. If you're interested in attending you can register online or call 866-924-7969 .
Our conference topics this year are wide-ranging and cover many niches within and around clinical medicine. Our 2011 agenda is the following:
Friday, November 11th
8:00 Leaving the Tribe, Silbaugh
9:00 Physician Career Transition, Wendel
10:00 Break
10:30 Prescriptions for Financial Success, Mazumdar
11:30 Living and Working Abroad, Bledsoe
12:30 Lunch
2:00 Concierge Medicine, Knope
3:00 Cosmetic Medicine Profits Blueprint, Barson
4:00 Real Estate Investing, Taff
5:00 Should You Get Your MBA?, Cohn
6:00 Accelerator I
Saturday, November 12th
8:00 Writing & Publishing I, Silver
9:00 Writing & Publishing II, Silver
10:00 Break
10:30 Internet Entrepreneurship I, Woo-Ming
11:30 Internet Entrepreneurship II, Woo-Ming
12:30 Lunch
2:30 Product Development, Silver
3:30 How to be a Rockstar Physician, Barson
4:30 Independent Consulting, Cohn
5:30 Accelerator II
Sunday, November 13th
8:00 Believe Me: The Importance of Building an Unforgettable Brand, Gulati
9:00 Careers for Physicians in Managed Care and Health Insurance, Peskin
10:00 Break
10:30 Introduction to Disability Review, Neuren
11:30 Online Marketing for Physicians: The Essentials, Quatre
I wanted to make sure I highlighted our two Accelerator sessions at the end of each day. Our Accelerators are some of our most popular times spent at the Medical Fusion Conference since each faculty and mentor has a table, and participants are allowed to wander from faculty member to faculty member and ask any and all questions of the speakers. No other event allows you this much face-time with nationally known leaders. Our participants raved about our Accelerator sessions in 2010 and we know that our 2011 participants will also enjoy this time.
As you can see from our faculty list and our agenda, Medical Fusion participants will be given exposure to a wide array of interesting topics and significant time with our stellar faculty. There's no event like the Medical Fusion Conference and there's only one Medical Fusion Conference in 2011: November 11-13, at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. It's the most exciting and invigorating medical conference in the country.
It's 2011 and we've got lots of fantastic CME physician conferences scheduled.
Over the next few months we'll be offering numerous opportunities for our Freelance MD members to connect with one another at live events around the country, and earn a little CME as well.
With everything that's happening I thought I would write a quick post detailing our upcoming events for the next 18 months so everyone is able to get them on their calendars. Every year, just before a major event, I get a steady stream of emails from individuals saying "if I only would have known." For whatever reason they didn't find out until too late about one of our events and they're left waiting until the following year to join us. Don't let that be you! For any of our events you can contact us here at Freelance MD or call our registration center at 866-924-7929 to reserve your place.
Here are the upcoming events that the more adventuresome physicians will be talking about...
Expedition Medicine National Conference: September 16-18, 2011
This September 16th-18th will be the five-year anniversary of our Expedition Medicine National Conference. We hold this event every year in Washington, DC and always receive rave reviews. Here are a few of the comments from past participants of our Expedition Medicine National Conference:
“Very well done – well organized! Great venue! Speakers are excellent. I would recommend this course and plan to attend again!" -Craig Hollinger MD, California
“This was a wonderful conference! For the first time, I’ve met so many doctors who also like wilderness and adventure! The speakers were amazing!” -Margaret Budzianowska-Kwiatkowski MD, British Columbia
"This conference is truly one of the best I have attended in 50+ years of actively practicing medicine. All of your speakers were outstanding. The material was very interesting and useful to my activities.” -Joseph English MD, Pennsylvania
Participants at this event will receive 20 hours of Category I CME taught by renowned experts from around the world and all will also receive our Expedition & Wilderness Medicine textbook ($150 value) free. The event will be at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.
In October, ExpedMed will be teaming up with Frontiers North Adventures to take a handful of hardy souls to visit the polar bears of Churchill, Canada. During the months of September and October, Churchill is the best place in the world to see polar bears in the wild. We'll be staying at the famed Tundra Buggy Lodge and earning 25 hours of Category I CME (20 hours online prior to the trip and 5 hours of live instruction during the trip).
This trip is going to be one of those rare experiences that create lifelong memories, and yes, spouses and non-medical people are welcome.
I've mentioned it before but it's worth repeating, our 2011 Medical Fusion Conference will be November 11th-13th at the amazing Aria Resort on the Strip in Las Vegas. We'll be announcing our 2011 faculty very soon, but suffice it to say that this year will be an incredible opportunity for you to learn more about how you can use your medical training in unique ways. Topics for 2011 include internet entrepreneurship, monetizing your blog, cosmetic medicine practice, becoming an independent consultant, writing and publishing, concierge medicine, and much more. Stay tuned to Freelance MD for more announcements regarding this event, and book early since space is limited.
ExpedMed CME Kilimanjaro Climb: March 24-April 6, 2012
For those of you who want to strike something off your "bucket list" and earn CME along the way, you really need to check out our ExpedMed CME Kilimanjaro climb.
ExpedMed has partnered with Tusker Trail to provide an excellent opportunity for participants to learn Expedition and Wilderness Medicine while climbing one of the world's most famous peaks. Tusker is one of the premiere safari and climbing outfits in the world, and were our chosen team to support ExpedMed's 2009 Kilimanjaro summit.
Check out this trip early as space is very limited, and be watching Freelance MD for more information on this incredible opportunity to have a little educational adventure in 2012.
So there you have it. Four excellent ways for you to connect with others and learn skills that will further your career. If you have any questions, feel free to let us know and of course, if you're interested in attending any of these events, please book early as they always fill up very quickly.
About: Greg Bledsoe blogs regularly at Freelance MD
A number of the physicians that I've interviewed on the Medical Spa MD Podcast were there as speakers, and a number of physicians that I met at the conference are going to be on the podast.
The Medical Fusion Conference is still relatively small. I think there were less than 100 physicians attending.
I'd attended the conference for a number of reasons; Medical Fusion is one of our Select Partners, I wanted to find out what value the conference held for physicians, and I wanted to guage the reaction of the physicians who attended.
Across the board it was all positive. Every physician I spoke to gave the conference two thumbs up and described it as an excellent overview of potential options in non-clinical medicine that had the wheels spinning. One of the take-aways was that every physician is looking for what the military world calls 'actionable intelligence', ways to put these strategies and information into action.
As a result, I'm launching a new site for physicians that want to gain more control of their career, income and lifestyle.
I'll be there. (If you're going to be there make sure you say hello.)
As a last chance reminder; if you're a Medical Spa MD Member and you attend, I'll cover you for a full month of business services from Frontdesk SEO, which is regularly something like $1200. (The DIY SEO accounts are much cheaper but the full service business account gets you a host of other stuff that includes Facebook, Twitter, Youtube as well as interviews and secret-shopper calls. Killer stuff.)
A number of the physicians that I've interviewed on the Medical Spa MD Podcast will be speaking so if you liked them recorded, you'll probably love them in person.
I've been looking to start a podcast for Medical Spa MD for a while now, and we've finally launched.
With each new episode, we'll talk about cosmetic medicine, plastic surgery, cosmetic lasers, clinic operations, management, marketing, sales, treaments, cost controls and everything else you'll want to know. We'll be asking (and hopefully answering) the tough questions. How do different cosmetic lasers compare? Which IPL company provides the best service? How should you compensate and motivate your staff? How to market your clinic? Where to spend your advertising budget? How to get started. How to grow. How to compete. Finally, what does that mean for your business and lifestyle?
To start, we're interviewing physicians who discuss their own concept of personal brand and how they've managed their careers outside of clinical medicine.
In the first episode we talk to Dr. Greg Bledsoe about the Medical Fusion Conference and his desire to help physicians control more of their career. Greg's speaking from experience here. He's a leader in expedition medicine and organizes his other businesses to facilitate the lifestyle and income that he wants.
In episode 2 we're talking with Dr. Elliot Justin of Swift MD about telemedicine and the efficient delivery of medical services remotely. Elliot talks candidly about Swift MD and how company got started and functions operationally. He's also got some views on the state of US healthcare that resonate with almost every other physician I know.
We've already got another few episodes being edited and a long list of physicians and others who are scheduled to appear. My goal is to get out at least one every other week for the foreseeable future.
This new podcast will focus on providing relevant information for physicians, with a special emphasis on cosmetic practices, techniques, marketing, operations and just about everything you'll want to be aware of the field of nonsurgical cosmetic medicine. While we'll have plenty of physician interviews, we'll also be talking to technology companies, marketing gurus, and others about what it takes to run a successful medical practice, and exactly how to use these tactics and operations inside your own clinic. We'll be providing broad overviews as well as delving down into specific treatments and 'how tos'.
The Medical Spa MD Podcast is a permenant addition. You can find it by clicking on the link in the main navigation at the top the page. You'll also be able to subscribe to the RSS feed directly or subscribe via iTunes as soon as they index the feed.
Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. What topics would you like us to cover in the future? What guests would you like us to interview?
There's just a couple of small catchs to this offer. First, you'll need to tell them that you're a Medspa MD Member at the time of your booking to get this deal. Second, there are a limited number.
I'm really excited to have you hear because in this video I'm going to talk about exactly how you can start to take control of your medical career and leverage you medical training in ways that you never thought possible. And then at the end of this video you're going to receive a personal offer from me that's exclusively to Medical Spa MD Members in which I'm going to pay your way to attend the conference. That's right. I'm so passionate about this conference and it's philosophy that I'm going to personally pay if you attend this conference in Las Vegas. You're going to want to stick around for this.
But first up, let me introduce you to the Fusion Medical Conference while I tell you what's got me so fired up and energized about it.
First you'll be up for two days of intense learning from physicians who have already made the decision to take their careers in the directions that they choose. These docs will teach you how they've succeeded, and let you learn from the mistakes they've made. From concierge medicine to pharmaceutical consulting, you'll learn from doctors who are already walking the walk.
Medical Fusion Conference is about taking control of your career, and your lifestyle. While other conference are packed with vendors and technology companies, Medical Fusion is filled with physicians who have decided to leverage their training and skills to create the career course that they want, from consulting , to writing, to film making. These guys are filled with information that you can use no matter what you current situation is.
Secondly, Medical Fusion isnt about walking the isles of a sales floor and listening to sales pitches, it's about doing. The difference is glaring. Look, I've been to all the conferences in NY, LA, Miami and Vegas. While the larger expos and conferences are selling you fish, Medical Fusion is handing you a fishing pole and teaching you how to use it.
Best of all, the thinking around Medical Fusion fits perfectly with cosmetic practices. As a physician practicing cosmetic medicine you need a host of skills, from marketing, to operations. You're in 'retail' medicine after all and the reason that you got in to cosmetic medicine was to gain some control of your practice and your life style. This is exactly the thinking that Medical Fusion is all about.
Ok, so let's talk about what you're going to get and why you'd be smart to step up snatch this offer before it's gone.
You get 2 days of rubbing elbows with physician entrepreneurs who can help you make smart and move your career in the direction that you choose.
You also get this generous bonus of 20 free hours of Category 1 CME credits through ExpedMed, the leader in expedition and wilderness medicine. It's al lot more fun than most CME courses and it's included for all attendees.
But, that's not all. Since you're a Medical Spa MD Member, I'm going to make you an offer that you'd be a fool to pass up on.
If you're a Medical Spa MD Member attending Medical Fusion and you let them know when you sign up, you're going to receive a full month of full service business SEO from Frontdesk. If you haven't looked at Frontdesk before, you should do it right now. There are already a number of Members who use Frontdesk to promote their search engine rankings and market their clinics online. And the business account is Frontdesk's flagship product that they usually charge $1,259 for.
And the reason that you're going to get that free month from Frontdesk is that Medical Spa MD is going to pay for it. That's right. I will pay for you to receive a full month of business services from Frontdesk and it won't cost you a dime.
There are a couple of caveats of course. You'll have to register by phone (866-924-7929) and identify yourself as a Member. And since I'm paying for this out of my own pocket I'm going to limit my total costs to $100,000 retail. (Yes, I'm getting a discount. No, it is not free. No matter how supportive a business is, they still have to make money and pay their employees as we all know) That means that not everyone who wants to get this bonus is going to be able to.
And since this is my own cash, I'll reserve the right to approve every bonus. I'll be pretty transparent about this and may publish a list of those who attend and receive this offer.
Lastly, lest you think that I must have some sort of business interest in Medical Fusion to make this kind of offer, not So. I have no business arrangement with the Medical Fusion Conference of any kind. None. Zilch. Nada. I'm making this offer because this conference is awesome and deserves support. That's it.
There you go. This is an absolutely killer deal. If you have any way of putting yourself in Las Vegas on November 5th, 6th, and 7th, do it. Whether you're just getting started, or you fancy yourself a bit of an old hand, you're going to learn how to take control of your career and put yourself on the path to the lifestyle you're looking for.
If you're smart, you'll book right now and snag a full month of Expert SEO services from Frontdesk.
Special Offer Fine Print
The offer I'm making to pay for a full month of SEO services from frontdesk is not part of the Medical Fusion Conference. It's my way of encouraging Members to attend and learn. It is entirely at my discretion and may be withdrawn, amended, discontinued or anything else at my sole discretion. (So don't abuse it.) That being said, you should absolutly take advantage of this ASAP since I'm only going to pay for a limited number of attendees. Yes, you will still have to pay the actual fee, flight and room... but you'll get me to give you a free month of full service SEO from Frontdesk. Get off your duff and sign up.
The Medical Fusion Conference is something of an anomaly in the medical conference circut. It's a conference built around providing physicians additional or tangential sources of income in addition to their regular clinical practice, and it's a damn good idea.
The Medical Fusion Conference offers something that's sorely lacking among the conglomeration of clinical shows and expos, a 'horizontal' approch to how physicians can direct their careers along a path of their own choosing. Truth be told, a great number (perhaps the greatest number) of physicians who enter cosmetic medicine or open a laser clinic or medical spa are doing so in order to have more control over their practice, their income, and their life. The Medical Fusion Conference is designed with exactly that goal in mind.
At this coming conference on November 5th to the 7th there will be physicians who have successfully made career choices that have allowed them to escape the grind an hours of traditional clinical practice and have forged their paths that 'leveraged their medical training'. They're film makers, authors, consultants, marketers, and entrepreneurs that have freed up their time and lifestyle to be able to make choices that most physicians can only dream of. The conference brings them all to together in a way that allows other physicians to learn how to replicate their success.
You might not want to be a physician author, consultant, or film maker, or run a concierce practice while consulting for pharmaceutical companies... but the same thinking and skill sets that these physicians have that allowed them to chart their own career path are perfectly applicable to you if you're a physician who wants more control of your practice and your life. Why? Because while the big conferences and expos are really marketing and advertising floor shows that are paid for by vendors, this conference is designed to give you information and skills that you can put to practical use.
Best of all, the conference is still small and intimate enough that you'll have access to every speaker. That's something that you'll never get at the monster expos and conferences. Faculty who are true experts in their fields are being brought in to discuss their careers and developing trends in medicine. Each day is designed to maximize learning and face time with faculty members including the scheduling of two "meet the faculty" sessions that allow sit down time between participants and the Medical Fusion speakers.
I just got off of the phone with the founder of the conference, Gregory H. Bledsoe, MD, MPH who is also the CEO of ExpedMed and Chief Editor of Expedition & Wilderness Medicine and I was more than just a little impressed. This conference is quite obviously something special and deserves your support.
If you're looking to give yourself some new tools in your career, this is the place to be.
Confirmed faculty for the Medical Fusion Conference include:
Gregory Bledsoe, MD, MPH, CEO of ExpedMed and Chief Editor of the textbook Expedition & Wilderness Medicine. ExpedMed.org
Natalie Hodge, MD, Co-Founder & Chief Health Officer of Personal Medicine PersonalMedicine.com
Elliot Justin, MD, Founder of telemedicine group SwiftMD and CEO of Pegasus Emergency Group. SwiftMD.comPegasus.md
John LaPuma, MD, New York Times best-selling author and founder of ChefMD. ChefMD.com
Steven Knope, MD, New York Times best-selling author of Concierge Medicine: A New System to Get the Best Healthcare. ConciergeMedicineMD.com
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, Professor of Otolarynogology, Dentistry, & Engineering, University of Colorado and Founder of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs. sopenet.org
Steven Peskin, MD, MBA, Executive VP and CMO of MediMedia. medimedia.com
Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD, Founder and CEO of Medical Justice. medicaljustice.com
Gary Taff, MD, entrepreneur and real estate investor
Mike Woo-Ming, MD, MPH, entrepreneur and internet marketing consultant. themarketingmd.com
Smartlipo in Mexico, a nose job in the Philippines or a kidney transplant in India.....
Medical tourism is generally defined as leaving home for care. It can be inbound, (someone from Mexico coming to the US), outbound (leaving the home country to go to another country) or domestic. There are local, regional, national and international medical tourism clusters developing throughout the United States and around the world.
It is estimated that global medical tourism is a $100B global industry expected to grow significantly over the next few years. While no one can know for certain the effects of the recent US healthcare reform bill, rising costs, lack of supply of physicians and the demand for technologies and treatments continue to expand and fuel the growth of the industry.
There are several ways for physicians to get involved in medical tourism. The first is as a provider, either in their home location or in a remote site doing surgery. Second, physician entrepreneurs are creating service companies like medical tourism facilitators or aggregators. Other potential business opportunities exist in supporting the medical tourism supply chain by providing insurance products, healthIT infrastructure, real estate projects, quality ratings agencies, accreditation and marketing arms and other consultation services. In addition, more and more payors and employers are offering voluntary medical tourism benefits to their employees and insureds, driving the demand for talent who can do medical tourism quality improvement and utilization review.
The most common procedures sought by patients considering medical tourism are cosmetic surgery and dentistry, bariatric surgery, IVF and short stay procedures in urology, orthopedics, ENT and ophthalmology. That said, because of the onerous costs of some procedures in the US, patients are seeking life saving cardiac surgery in India, proton beam irradiation in South Korea and living donor liver transplants in Asia.
A recent report from the Center for Medical Tourism Research in San Antonio, Texas called medical tourism "arguably one of the fastest growing industries in the US" Maybe it's time for you to take a look.
Turning A Negative Into A Positive, The Medical Justice Story
I am a board-certified neurosurgeon who was sued one time for what I perceived to be a frivolous reason. The single expert who testified against me had been expelled from our professional society for delivering frivolous testimony. This expert had never performed or even observed the specific technique in question.
At the time I was practicing in Indiana, a state that embraced substantive tort reform years earlier. Nonetheless, I was in the crosshairs. After two years, the case was dismissed a few weeks before trial. But, I never felt as if I won anything. I just felt as if I lost less. I learned I was in good company. Many have been sued. Few talk about it.
Beyond the age of 40, I quit my day job and started Medical Justice, a physician-based organization focused on keeping doctors from being sued for frivolous reasons. The organization now addresses an array of medico-legal threats and serves thousands of physicians nationwide. The single goal is to make it easier for doctors to practice medicine.
Migrating from a comfortable living as a neurosurgeon to the calculated risk inherent in the entrepreneurial world was not easy. Many lessons were learned. My session at the Medical Fusion Conference, "Physicians and the Legal System, the Story of Medical Justice", will focus on the story and these lessons --the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Take in some more information from Dr. Segal at the Medical Fusion Conference, November 5th throught the 7th at the Wynn confernce center in Las Vegas.
Medical Spa MD
Physicians, plastic surgeons, and dermatologists practicing nonsurgical cosmetic medicine in medical spas, laser clinics and aesthetic practices.
Julie Silver MD at Medfusion 2011
