Show Notes
#001 – What, Why, and a Quick Win
In this episode, I share what this podcast is all about, my WHY for creating it, and one quick win that you can take home right away to help you succeed on your direct care journey.
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Introduction to the Show and Dr. Stephen Lewellis
- Welcome and Introduction
- Exploring the Concept of Direct Care
- Invitation to Subscribe and Engage
The Power of Storytelling
- Dr. Lewellis’ Personal Journey in Medicine
- The Rise of Direct Care in Healthcare
- The Healing Nature of Stories
- Embracing the Imperfections of a First Episode
The Gift of a Small or Non-Existent Audience
- The Freedom in Starting Small
What is this Show and Who is it for?
- The Purpose and Audience of the Podcast
- The Need for Support in the Medical Community
The Direct Care Mindset Shift
- Practical Advice for Aspiring Direct Care Professionals
- Overcoming the Victim Mindset in Medicine
- The Challenge of Gaining Autonomy
The Journey Ahead
- Dr. Lewellis’ Vision for Future Episodes
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
- Encouragement to Share and Review the Podcast
Transcript
Stephen Lewellis: Hi, friends. And welcome to the show. You’re listening to The Direct Care Derm. My name is Stephen. I’m a board certified dermatologist and direct care dermatology practice owner. I’m also your host.
The Direct Care Derm is a podcast that gives you a blueprint for creating a direct care practice of your own with the help of my story as I’m living it and the stories of many friends and colleagues, both within dermatology and other fields of medicine and in relevant non-medical fields, such as marketing and finance.
Each week, my friends and I will be bringing you tips, resources, education, entertaining stories, industry insights, and so much more. Consider this your one-stop shop for taking yourself from direct care curiosity to direct care mastery.
At this point, you may find yourself asking what is direct care?
Direct care is the restoration of the therapeutic physician patient relationship and the trust between patient and physician that has eroded so [00:01:00] terribly over the last several decades.
Direct care is addition by subtraction.
It’s the opposite of indirect care. The kind of care that’s so frustrating to both patients and doctors. Where appropriate care has constantly having to be justified to insurance companies and other third party payers. And necessary medical care is delayed in sometimes disastrous ways all in the blind pursuit of profit.
If you or a doctor in your life has ever talked about being burned out in medicine, this is one of the biggest reasons why. Fortunately, there’s something we can do about it.
By removing as many barriers as possible that stand between physicians like myself and the people who need us, direct care practices seek to provide transparent, affordable, accessible, and superior care that meets and ideally even surpasses the expectations of the 21st century healthcare consumer.
If you like this and want to subscribe to my newsletter. Head over to [00:02:00] LewellisMD.com. That’s L E W E L L I S M D as in medical doctor.com.
Writer and artist Austin Kleon says in his book Steal Like an Artist. “Whenever you’re at a loss for what move to make next. Just ask yourself. ‘What would make a better story?’”
My name is Dr. Stephen Lewellis. I’m a board certified dermatologist. I received both my MD and PhD degrees from the New York university school of medicine and New York city. I then went on to complete my dermatology residency training at Stanford university.
I’m now recovering from four years spent in corporate medicine as a practicing general medical dermatologist. After an abrupt and unexpected without cause termination by my employer in August of 2023, I was launched earlier than I anticipated on an entrepreneurial journey.
As I record this, I’m just weeks away from opening [00:03:00] my first private practice. The model I’ll be using for this practice is the direct care model, which you’ll learn much more about if you continue to listen to the show. For now it suffices to say that the direct care model is the best way that I know of to restore the physician patient relationship that has deteriorated so much over the last few decades. I believe that restoration of the therapeutic relationship that is at the core of heart centered medicine can serve as the tipping point that gets both us and our system back to health.
In the current model, physicians and consumers are frustrated and in pain. The American healthcare system, as we know it is at a financial and emotional breaking point. However I’m encouraged by the amount of innovation, experimentation, and flat out great doctoring that’s going on in small disconnected pockets around the country. But like the network of Tesla superchargers, just give it [00:04:00] time.
I know the direct care wave is coming. Few things are more obvious to me than that. The question is: are you going to learn to surf so that you can catch that maybe once in a lifetime exhilarating, next wave.? Or will you be watching from the beach or continuing to get swallowed up by the undertow of big box medical and for-profit health insurance companies.
The Power of Storytelling
Stephen Lewellis: I chose podcasting as a medium to discuss direct care because I believe stories are medicine. As humans we thrive on and depend on stories.
I like to share with my dad the fond memory I have of him taking me to the Allentown public library and then Dunkin donuts afterwards for a snack when I was young.
I’d like to share with you an excerpt from a book called Crow and Weasel by Barry Lopez. In my memory, at least, we checked out that book just about every time we went to that library.
“We are very grateful for your hospitality,” said Badger.. [00:05:00] “Crow, each place we go, we learn something, and your wisdom here has helped us. I would ask you to remember only this one thing,” said, Badger. “The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them, and learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves. One day, you will be good storytellers. Never forget these obligations.”
One Day, I will also be a good storyteller, but I have to start somewhere.
I recently heard someone refer to a common saying in the podcasting business: “if you’re not embarrassed by your first episode, [00:06:00] you waited too long to release it.”
I’ll let you judge, whether or not I waited too long to release my first episode.
What really matters to me is that you’re here, and I’m so grateful for your attention. We’ll be telling a lot of stories on this podcast, both my own and that of many friends that I’ve met along the way.
You’ll hear and learn from other dermatologists as well as experts in other fields that are relevant To building a thriving, successful and sustainable business that you and your patients love.
The Gift of a Small or Non-Existent Audience
Stephen Lewellis: Before I go into some more detail on the what and why of this podcast, I want to reflect for a moment on the liberating power of a small or nonexisting audience, which is the gift that I’m working with right now.
If you are listening, I couldn’t be more grateful that you’re here, but I also know that there aren’t a whole lot of you out there right now if you happen to be listening to this in early 2024. A small or nonexisting [00:07:00] audience gives you permission and courage to start creating. This is the only way you’ll go from quite frankly, sucking to not sucking. You might think I suck right now, and that’s totally okay.
And the best part is this gift is free to you if you haven’t started yet. And you won’t be able to get it back when you have a big audience, so the best and only time to use it as now.
It’s power gradually decays as you get better at what you’re doing, but at that point, you don’t need it anymore. So it’s someone else’s turn to have it.
It’s the only naturally occurring, valuable resource that I can think of that is both free to use for everyone who hasn’t used it yet and can’t be hoarded by those with more resources than you.
The less you have, the more of it. You get. Don’t take it for granted.
What is this Show and Who is it For?
So what is the show and who is it for? The show is about the why and the how of starting a direct care dermatology practice.
The why [00:08:00] for me is that I want to make it just a little bit easier for anyone else who feels like there should be something more in their career in medicine.
A lot of doctors are in pain these days.
I’ve been there.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
You don’t have to escape medicine. You just have to do it on your own terms.
There’s no doubt that that takes a lot of work. The willingness to fail, get back up, do it again. The willingness to look a little cringy once in awhile. Think back to when you first sat in front of a patient with that white coat on.
You were probably pretty cringe at that point.
But now you’re here. And you’re probably a pretty amazing doctor. You might not be feeling that way, but it’s not your fault. It is however, your responsibility if you want to change that.- No matter where you might be on this journey. It helps to have some support from, as Dr. Becky on her amazing [00:09:00] podcast, good inside says, like- valued people.
We don’t all need to be like-minded. I want to interact with people who are different minded than me, but values are important.
I hope this podcast can be one of your pillars of support.
While I am still early on this journey, I’m a motivated learner and love connecting with other people on the entrepreneurial path and coming to know what I don’t know.
Let me be your model. Your crash test dummy. I stole that one from pat Flynn. He’s a great resource for any of you looking to get started as a creator.
You’re the hero. But every hero needs a guide.
So, what can you expect from the show more specifically? Again, I’ll be giving you plenty of nuts and bolts. That blueprint or roadmap. We’ll be sharing resources that other dermatologists who are way ahead of both you and me are using, things they found helpful, not helpful, Everything in between. We’ll also be exploring personal growth challenges that [00:10:00] you need to overcome and mindset shifts that will help you on your journey.
I’ll be doing solo episodes where I simply share the raw gritty details of my experience. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful so that you can learn from it. I’m confident that you’ll learn things from these episodes that will save you time or money along your journey. I’ll also be featuring guests who are at various stages of their direct care journeys so we can both learn from them. We’ll also talk to experts in other relevant areas, such as business, strategy, Branding and marketing, finance, insurance, legal, real estate management, personal growth, communication and on and on.
I want to leave you with a quick win so you can start getting value from this show right away.
The Direct Care Mindset Shift
I call this the direct care mindset shift.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Many of us are stuck in the victim mindset and blind to the things about ourselves that are [00:11:00] holding us back or making us unable to become the doctor we really want to be. This mindset leads to things like work dread. Michael Hersh of better physician life, also a friend of mine and a gastroenterologist wrote an excellent blog post about work dread. I bet you felt it. I certainly have. That feeling you get, when you see the exit on the highway where you see the sign. You pull into that parking spot, and you just don’t want to get out of the car. You know what’s facing you inside. And you know how you’re going to feel by the middle of the day and finally, by the end of the day,
it doesn’t have to be this way.
But the hard truth is that there are no shortcuts.
If you want autonomy. If you want the practice that you’ve always dreamed of. If you want to really help patients. You need to take control. That requires a lot of hard work. It requires some risk-taking. For me, [00:12:00] it requires stepping away from an insurance-based model that feeds me more patients than I could ever imagine taking care of. That stability, that security.
It’s now my job to get patients in the door.
You’ve worked incredibly hard and sacrificed a ton to get here.
But finishing residency or fellowship does not entitle you to things like 100% autonomy, creative freedom, and the practice you’ve always dreamed of. The work doesn’t end after we finish our training. That’s when the work really begins.
The Journey Ahead
In subsequent episodes, I’ll be sharing more about my story, for example, how I dealt with an abrupt without cause termination by my employer in August of 2023 that traumatically launched me on this new entrepreneurial journey.
I’m so grateful to be doing what I’m doing right now, but I’m not going to lie to you and say, it’s not scary. I’m confident that I’ll be successful, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts. [00:13:00]
The mindset shift you need to make if you want to be successful in direct care is about taking charge of your life and Knowing. that nothing is owed to you.
Your perfect patients are out there. There’s more of them than you could ever imagine. You might not believe that yet, but you will.
They’re waiting for you to build your dream practice because it’s also their dream practice. Going from a sense of entitlement to acknowledging that There is hard work to be done and risks to be taken if you want to live that life you’ve been imagining is the direct care mindset shift.
We’ll dive way, deeper into mindset and other things that are critical for entrepreneurial success in future episodes, but I hope at least some of that hit home with you today.
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
Stephen Lewellis: Hey, Stephen here. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way you can support a podcast is to share, follow, subscribe, and most importantly, leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast hosting platform. [00:14:00] If you’re new here, you might not feel ready to leave an honest review yet. That’s totally fine. At the very least, keep listening, and share it with one person in your life who you think might benefit from it. Thanks for being here. Your attention means the world to me. I’ll see you on the next episode.
