Early Practice Management Tips

     We had our last Clinic lecture this morning, my SOAP charting assignment has been handed in, and now all I need to do is go to my clinic shift on November 23 (really excited about it, sad it's not for so long), and write the reflection for that. What I want to talk about today though was the presentation we had before our lecture started. We were lucky enough to have Jonathan Wilde come in and talk to our class for a little while before we started looking at case analysis. Jonathan is the teacher for Practice Management in third and fourth year, but it was nice that he came in to have a short talk with us today.

    I really liked listening to Jonathan because he went over some key points that I think are really important. First and most important is the importance of business in naturopathic medicine. Of course the vast majority of naturopathic students (including myself) got into this field because we want to help people to live better lives; if we wanted to make lots of money, we would've gotten into some sort of business. But it is important to remember that we are still part of a business. Business includes things like marketing, and they are so vital to naturopathic practice. Of course we want to help people, but if you don't have any patients, then you can't really help anyone.

    So hopefully the practice management courses in third and fourth year will be helpful, and I've also signed up for the business club and will look into other avenues for some extra business education to help in the future (great that I've got some accountants and lawyers in the family), but here are some of the great tips that Jonathan gave us that we can start right now:

1.  Get a website so you can start getting your name out --> hopefully by working on this blog I've started that a bit

2. Preceptoring --> I think a lot of people see this as something you need to check off your list, just get as many hours as you can as quickly as you can, and likely with few practitioners so you can just get a lot of hours done faster. Jonathan's presentation really reinforced a key aspect of preceptoring --> working at the front with the receptionist and asking lots of questions about the business. It is obviously important to watch different practitioners with patients and learn from their interactions, but the business side is a key aspect which should not be overlooked. Preceptoring under many practitioners, asking lots of questions, reflecting on the experiences and learning what works well and what does not are key activities that can help naturopathic students prepare for their futures in business.

3. The obvious one --> getting out there. Everywhere you go, when you meet new people or when you're talking with friends and family, it is important to be proud of what you do and are going to do, and to educate people. Developing a strong elevator speech about naturopathic medicine helps to provide people with the information they need to determine if they want to know more, and to know that you are a reliable source for information about this wonderful field.