Learning for earning: When it's time to consider an extra career

Physicians increasingly are taking classes to develop new skills outside their practices, to boost their professional satisfaction and supplement their incomes.

By Robert Kazel, AMNews staff. April 21, 2003.

Chris Smythies, MD, started writing as a way of escaping the more dismal realities of practicing medicine. Then he discovered that someone could show him how to make a little money at it, too.

The Renton, Wash., neurosurgeon signed up for a course on medical fiction writing. He is one of a growing number of doctors trying to learn new skills to supplement traditional practices with nontraditional side jobs. Physicians are taking classes or m

These physicians aren't seeking to leave medicine but to discover untapped aptitude for secondary jobs that could bolster professional satisfaction and income, says Francine Gaillour, MD, an internist who advises doctors through Creative Strategies in