DOCTOR TO DOCTOR

Success Strategies Elevating Your Business & Personal Life

Emily Letran, Edward J. Zuckerberg, Kayvon Javid

• Publisher: Total Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781633021983
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Decision Making
• Index: Business

This book is a compilation of strategies for success covering multiple disciplines, such as medicine, dentistry, optometry, chiropractic, philosophy and pharmacy. We believe in the unity of health care professional to unite, share stories and help each other accelerate personal and business growth.Contributors: Kianor Shah, DMD, MBAEmily Letran, DDS, MS, CHPCEdward J. Zuckerberg, DDS, FAGDKayvon Javid, DDS, DICOI, CPIAura Imbarus PhDSusan Truong, MDAlan Chong, DCGerald Morris, MD, MPHJohn Kriak, PharmDandThe Dream Team of the Global Summits Institute

Table of Contents

Foreword: The Time Is Now, Dr. Kianor Shah

Chapter 1: Dare to Be Different, Dr. Emily Letran

Chapter 2: Succeeding with Social Media, Dr. Edward J. Zuckerberg

Chapter 3: Tales from Four Decades of Healthcare Business: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Dr. Mike Davis

Chapter 4: Wellness Dentistry for Practice Success, Dr. Katie To

Chapter 5: Family Business: Building A Successful Practice With Your Spouse, Dr. Gerald Morris

Chapter 6: Growing in a Doctor-to-Doctor Environment, Dr. Julio Cesar Reynafarje Reyna

Chapter 7: Evolution of Doctor-Patient Relationship: From Consultation to Compassion, Dr Prashant Bhasin

Chapter 8: The Art of Learning, Dr. Aura Imbarus

Chapter 9: The Power of Mentorship, Dr. Alan Chong

Chapter 10: Success and Relationships, Dr. Vi Ho

Chapter 11: Four-Step Blueprint to Create a Successful Practice, Dr. Gurien Demiraqi

Chapter 12: Personal Finance for Success, Dr. Susan Truong, OD

Chapter 13: Six Strategies for a Successful Business: The D2D Teaching Program, Dr. Kayvon Javid

Chapter 14: Limitless Achievements, Dr. John Kriak

Chapter 15: Telemedicine and the Uberization of Healthcare, Dr. Arash Hakhamian

Chapter 16: Doctors and Clinical Research – A Step Towards a Better Future, Dr. Preetinder Singh

Chapter 17: The D2D Revolution, Dr. Pavel Krastev

Foreword

The Time Is Now

Dr. Kianor Shah

It is my absolute honor to write this foreword introducing you to today’s great minds of our healthcare profession.

The Global Summits Institute, which was founded entirely doctors, and exists entirely for doctors, has been a vision and dream come true for me.

More than ever, I see the need for doctors’ collaboration, teaching and sharing knowledge with each other, so that they can take their businesses to the next level and serve their patients with the greatest integrity.

Interestingly, the word doctor comes from the Latin word Docere, meaning to teach. The purpose of our global movement, Doctor-to-Doctor, is to share the knowledge that we have all gained. When we, as doctors, live by the rule of “Learn one, Do one, Teach one,” we all stand to benefit. As doctors share what they have learned from an academic, administrative, and financial perspective, they can prosper in their careers, as well as personal lives.

In this book we have invited esteemed members of the Top 100 Doctors as well as the Faculty of the Doctorate of Healthcare Business Program to reflect upon their successes and failures so that our colleagues may benefit from their wisdom.

As doctors, we are inherently connected through the Hippocratic oath and our common principles. We are focused on patient care, the source of our strength. We face common challenges at work and often lead similar personal lives. Professional schools do not teach us the business skills necessary to be able to succeed in commerce. Over time, and in our own isolation, third parties have invited themselves in and attempted to corporatize the healthcare industry. This is a lucrative business for them. Their main goal is to profiteer and to reduce us to obedient assembly line workers.

Unfortunately, they have succeeded to a certain degree in a few of the world’s markets, especially Europe and North America. They have simultaneously caused tremendous damage to our reputations, and to the patient-doctor relationship wherever they operate. They are quick to find excuses as to why they have positioned themselves in our supply chain in this manner. Often, we have become the joke of the day to these third parties when it comes to our business acumen.

The idea of doctors who are well-informed, trained, and highly skilled in business, finance, and leadership does not serve these third parties well.

It is our intent to maximize information exchange and increase dialogue among doctors of all industries. Together, we will discover and deliver solutions to the challenges facing us. Ultimately, the parties who have plagued the noblest of professions will be faced with millions of informed doctors, standing in solidarity.

After studying this topic in various healthcare sectors for 15 years, we continue to reach the same conclusion. There will always be a conflict of interest with the Patient-Doctor relationship if we do not maintain absolute autonomy over our practices, processes, and the healthcare industry. Otherwise, we have nothing and we are leaving future doctors with nothing. Together, we can bring the Doctor-Patient relationship back to what it once was, and always should be.

United we will stand and divided we will fall. The doctor down the street is not our competition. The specialists are our friends. Let’s not create vacuums for these outside parties to thrive in. We are all one. If a fraction of us united, we could create a decentralized, global, peer-to-peer system, devoid of third-party interference. In a short period of time, the Doctor-to-Doctor movement has created more than 26 valuable projects led by doctors.

I know you will appreciate the insights and success strategies shared by the leaders in this book. Join us in THE movement uniting the global healthcare industry: Doctor-to-Doctor.

1

Dare To Be Different

Dr. Emily Letran

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently – they’re not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

~ Steve Jobs

When I was growing up, I never thought of myself as the one who “dares to be different.” Being the oldest girl born in a happy family to parents who were philosophy teachers, I have always understood and followed the rules.

When my mother passed away at a young age due to cancer, I was the big sister helping to teach my youngest siblings to read and write while my dad and my aunt were out working most of the day to support our extended family. I did a lot of the household chores and soon realized there was a quiet rebellion inside of me, especially when it came to the things I did not like to do. Washing dishes and doing laundry were my least favorite activities. I would develop an allergic reaction (“naturally”) when soaking my hands too long in soapy water, whether it was to do dishes or hand wash the family clothes before hanging them outside to dry on the lines high above my head.

At the age of 13, I left my father and two younger siblings to escape from Communist Viet Nam with my aunt. That was the first time I realized that sometimes you have to break the rules to achieve what you want. Our tiny little boat was shot at, stopped, and robbed by the Vietnamese Coast Guard. They finally let us go, and we travelled for seven days in the ocean even though we ran out of food after day two.

Once we arrived at the refugee camp, I had the opportunity to witness the true spirit of humanity. The refugees there had survived trauma and hardship, yet were able to celebrate small moments of joy with very little material possessions. I remember sitting on the beach with my cousins, practically in the dark, to listen to the music coming from the far-off, makeshift coffee shop. We cooked all kinds of food with the mung beans we got in the supply bags. There was sweet mung bean soup and mung bean pastry, and we grew bean sprouts as the main vegetable for many months.

The majority of the people in that camp regretted their journey, longed for the happier times in the past, and struggled with self-doubt. Although filled with uncertainty, the refugees who were “different” saw their time there as a transition to a brighter future.

When we are presented with challenges, we can either give in or face the challenge head on. When opportunity knocks, we have to be ready to grab ahold and leverage it. Being different in your thinking, mindset, and determination will set you apart from others around you. There is little competition if you are different because people cannot compare you with others if you are the first, the one thinking outside the box, or the only one standing out from the rest of the crowd.

In hindsight, I realize I was different from many of my colleagues from the very beginning of my dental career. I took over a small three-chair practice and within months decided on a radical action: to remove the lunch room to add a fourth operatory and a panoramic-cephalometric x-ray. The addition immediately relieved the overbooking of the schedule, and we soon outgrew the space. We moved two more times within the next few years to embrace growth rather than being content with where we were.

When I served as the President of the Alumni Board at UCLA Dental School, I hosted business management seminars for alumni using my own funds for meals and seminar rooms when the school only supported me by sending out a few emails. While my colleagues were focusing on clinical training through extensive continuum, I invested in business, marketing, and personal development programs. I made sure to bring my children along so they could learn from real-life educational experiences even before they became adults. Before they graduated from high school, my kids attended international conferences and met industry leaders who have inspired generations.

The focus on personal growth and business systems helped me grow three successful dental group practices (two of them to seven figures) with very small, efficient staffs and by leveraging the talents of associate doctors and specialists. Instead of creating lots of rules, I set up guidelines and empowered the staff to grow with incentivized goals, based on business metrics. Instead of spending money on material things like fancy cars and expensive vacations, I invested in training for my teams. My staff know they are expected to improve their performance with tracking goals. Our patients are often impressed with the trips our teams take together. We worked super-hard when we were in the office and then went on an Alaskan cruise, visited Cancun cenotes and watched fancy Vegas shows. My staff received a “raise” every year, not based on the industry norm of seniority, but based on great performance.

We also invested in our patient relationships. We set up Movie Nights for our patients to come as families and enjoy popcorn, drinks, and a blockbuster movie with our team. We rented out the whole theater with several hundred seats for this event. I get asked all the time, “How could you spend thousands of dollars like that?” My answer has always been: “Because we value our patient relationship and want to show our gratitude.” Since we track our marketing results, we know with certainty every single one of those movie nights produced positive ROIs, and our patients bragged about us all the time.

When we ask for referrals, as every business should, we make it into a fun contest. We give away exciting prizes, from whitening kits, $1000 cash for a cruise, to Invisalign treatment or cosmetic dentistry cases. We understand that creating lasting connections with patients requires fun and loving care. I have patients who have been with me the entire 24 years I have owned my first, Monrovia, CA. practice. Some of the families who come to me as regulars are into their third generation of patients now. In a world where everything is at risk of becoming a commodity, our business has to be different to attract and retain our patients as raving fans. I have been blessed to learn various marketing strategies and apply them to achieve my thriving practices.

During all of that professional growth, I decided to share my knowledge and expertise in accelerating business success by dedicating my time to help other business professionals with my coaching and consulting programs. As a newbie in the speaking world, I found myself constantly seeking opportunities to present my talk, and of course, I chose to serve across all industries. The desire to be different inherently led me to host my own live events, although I had no previous experience! As a practicing dentist for more than two decades who had never been on any stage, I hosted my own radio show, held my signature event, ACTION To WIN across the US and internationally, and attracted industry leaders as collaborators and large organizations as corporate sponsors.

I believe when your desire and passion call to you, you should answer them. You should also ask for help, and when you do, the universe will present options for you. My journey from a Vietnamese refugee to a healthcare professional speaking on international stages and featured in Forbes Magazine was not an accident. It was the result of strategy, intention, expert guidance, and the dare to be different.

Now, as part of the Doctor-to-Doctor movement, I am stepping up to represent my colleagues in the healthcare field and play a bigger role in creating more collaboration and higher achievements across multiple sectors of healthcare. We are changing the education doctors receive by introducing the Doctorate of Healthcare Business program, where we will close the gap between successful clinical skills and exceptional business management. We are also establishing several business models where doctors can support each other’s projects, business ventures, and investments.

Most of all, together, we are enjoying the journey of the “crazy” innovators who dare to be different and who will change the world of healthcare as you know it, one day at a time.

Dr. Emily Letran, DDS, MS, CHPC

Dr. Emily Letran is a serial entrepreneur, CEO of multiple dental practices, and private coach to many professionals. As an international speaker on several continents, she has been on TEDx and shared stages with countless business leaders including Sharon Lechter (Co-Author Rich Dad Poor Dad), Dr. Howard Farran (Dental Town), and Linda Mile...