Physicians Starting A Company

How do you start a company as a physician?

Many physicians are looking to start new ventures. In this presentation, Dr Michael VanRooyen discusses his esperiences building for-profit companies as well as his ventures building humanitarian solutions.

Michael VanRooyen MD MPH FACEP

Dr. VanRooyen is the Director, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative as well as the Director of the Division of International Health and Humanitarian Programs, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health and an Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. VanRooyen has worked extensively in humanitarian assistance in over thirty countries affected by war and disaster, including Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, North Korea, Darfur-Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, both as a physician and a policy advisor with numerous relief organizations, including CARE, Save the Children, Physicians for Human Rights and Samaritans Purse International Relief. He has served as a special advisor for the World Health Organization and as a member of the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee's Health Cluster. Domestically, Dr. VanRooyen has provided relief assistance at the site of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11th with the American Red Cross and also helped to coordinate the American Red Cross public health response to Hurricane Katrina, sending over twenty physicians from the Harvard system to hurricane-devastated regions.

Dr. VanRooyen teaches courses on humanitarian operations in war at the Harvard School of Public Health. His textbook, Emergency Field Medicine, is considered one of the key reference texts in this area, and he has authored over 50 publications related to international emergency medicine development and humanitarian assistance. Dr. VanRooyen has served on numerous advisory panels and boards, including International Rescue Committee, the National Academies/GAO evaluation of mortality studies in Darfur, and is chairman of the Humanitarian Action Summit. Dr. VanRooyen has also been awarded the Reader's Digest Health Heroes Award, the Raoul Wallenburg Foundation Humanitarian Award, the Hippocrates Society Humanitarian Award and the AMA Pride in the Profession Award. He was given the University of Illinois Alumni Humanitarian Award and was featured as one of two US physicians in the American Medical Association's publication entitled Caring Physicians of the World.

This video is from the Medical Fusion Conference in 2009.

Transcript

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Medical Fusion Conference Lecture Videos Available

Freelance MD has become a great place for physicians to learn more about ways they can leverage their medical training in order to advance their careers.  This web hub is a great distance-learning tool to connect like-minded physicians and promote learning.

The live/physical version of Freelance MD is our Medical Fusion Conference which occurs every November in Las Vegas.  At the Medical Fusion Conference we bring together experts from a variety of niche areas-- many of whom write for Freelance MD-- in order to network and connect person to person.  It's an event that only happens once a year, so we eagerly promote it here on Freelance MD with the hope that our readers will pencil the event into their busy schedules.  We want to meet our Freelance MD members and we know you'll benefit from the speakers we've assembled.

Over the past few weeks we've reorganized our Medical Fusion Conference website to make it more interactive and give potential participants an idea of what happens at this innovative event.  We recently added a blog to the Medical Fusion Conference website and we've posted a few lecture clips from past Medical Fusion Conferences.

Check out the videos below to get an idea as to what goes on at the Medical Fusion Conference.  We'll be posting more lecture clips in the near future, so stay tuned to Freelance MD.  

Video clip #1:  In this video, we assembled a team of venture capitalists to discuss VC and how clinical physicians can become a part of this interesting career.  Dr. Bruce Robertson, Managing Director of H.I.G. Bioventures, Dr. Josh Resnick of Prism Ventures, and Dr. Joe Smith, VP of Emerging Technology at Johnson & Johnson are the members of this interesting panel discussion.

 Video Clip #2:  Dr. Michael VanRooyen in the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and a well-known expert on humanitarian disasters.  However, Dr. VanRooyen is also an experienced entrepreneur and has helped start and develop four businesses, one of which, Ibex, was eventually bought by Picis for millions.  In this lecture, Dr. VanRooyen discusses the culture of start-up companies and how clinical physicians can develop their business skills in order to be more effective in enterprises like these.

Video Clip #3:  Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, a Family Physician who retired from medicine at the age of 35 years old in order to focus on his internet businesses, discusses internet marketing and internet entrepreneurship.  "Dr. Mike" as he is known in internet circles, offers advice to those who are interested in using the internet to leverage their clinical knowledge in a variety of ways.