Recently, I have had several colleagues of mine approach me at different times about how they can start their side hustles. Sometimes, you just want to do something else you love. You may want to break the routine to clear your head sometimes, as well as engage in a passion that can give you an alternate source of income.
Medicine is a jealous lover that could rob your life from you. This is not just a mere saying, as a study has shown that to provide guideline-recommended care, a primary care physician would require nearly 26.7 hours per day[1]Revisiting the Time Needed to Provide Adult Primary Care | Journal of General Internal Medicine. This is paradoxical as we only have 24 hours per day.
As a doctor, nurse, laboratory scientist, optometrist, etc, you may want to pursue a side hustle for an alternative stream of income. Interestingly, you are not alone.
Forbes has documented that doctors are increasingly pursuing side gigs in today’s medical practice and diversifying their career paths, documenting that a lack of ability to disconnect from work at home and focus on other aspects of their lives, amongst other work-related challenges, has resulted in burnout in over 79% of primary care physicians and 57% percent of specialists.[2]Physician Burnout 2019 – InCrowd
Pursuing a side hustle is one way to avoid an unchanging work routine and diversify your productivity. According to Bill Gates, avoiding routine, finding new projects, and setting yourself challenges are ways to prevent burnout. Thus, having a side hustle can help you prevent burnout as a medical professional.
Seeing the increase in medical professionals’ interest in pursuing a side hustle, you might want to enlist in the number too. As a doctor, I have seen many other medical doctors and specialists talk about their success in their side hustles. I have a specialist consultant who said he also has a farm as a side hustle.
However, pursuing a side hustle can be very challenging, especially as a medical professional. In this post, you will see some fulfilling side hustles you can start as a medical professional.
Why Medical Professionals Should Consider a Side Hustle
Having a side hustle as a medical professional can come with a lot of benefits to you as a person. Work can be so demanding that you oftentimes need a hobby to recharge and get back your energy. Here are some reasons you need a side hustle as a medical professional.
- You may not be rich without doing something else: You can be comfortable being a medical doctor in any part of the world but your salary alone will not make you rich. People might think that you are extremely wealthy but only you know the true secret. Engaging in a side hustle and establishing it is one way to become richer than your salary dictates.
- Satisfaction in doing what you love: Not doing things you are passionate about can make you feel unsatisfied in life, and contrarily pursuing your passions as a side hustle can give you overall satisfaction.
- Source of relaxation and relief: As a medical doctor, I have my bad days at work, either due to the outcome of a patient’s management or some other issues at work. Engaging in my side hustle is a way to cool off and take my mind off the stress of work.
- Wider recognition: Pursuing a side hustle you are passionate about can make you stand out from the crowd as a medical doctor or any medical professional, and give you more recognition than by just being a medical professional. For example, Dr. Mehmet Oz is a cardiothoracic surgeon but he gained widespread fame as a television personality, author, and host of “The Dr. Oz Show”, where he discusses health and wellness topics.
- An additional source of disposable income: Living on your salary alone may not allow you to purchase luxury products, pay for certain products, or gift money to friends and family, because you are afraid to waste money on non-too-important things. However, your side income can give you that leverage.
- Earning a side income can reduce your need to borrow and prevent accruing debts.
- You can become your own boss or a boss to employees from your side hustle.
How To Select Side Hustle for Doctors and Medical Professionals
The problem of time management between your medical profession and your side hustle is something you will encounter. Being a medical professional like a physician, surgeon, nurse, and so on, can be very stressful and time demanding. You saw the study reference in the preamble stating that it would require around 27 hours per day for a primary care physician to provide guideline-recommended care in the hospital.
Therefore learning to balance time for your main and side jobs will be very invaluable. Also, determination and perseverance are some very important ingredients for succeeding in your side hustle, especially for an individual in a very busy profession like the medical profession.
In 2022, the most popular side hustles most people pursued include online and social media (16.6%), ridesharing and delivery (15.6%), online commerce (13.4%), freelancing (13.4%), arts and crafts (7.8%), market research (7.1%), and software and IT (7.1%).[3]20+ Must-Know Side Hustle Statistics [2023]: How Much Does The Average Side Hustle Earn? – Zippia But as a medical professional, you need to consider things a bit differently.
Here are some factors to consider.
1. Your knowledge
As a medical professional, it will be easy to leverage your medical knowledge in choosing a side hustle. By thinking about how you use your knowledge to provide helpful solutions to people’s health problems, you can come up with a side hustle idea you can pursue as a medical professional.
Also, you can choose a side hustle that adds value to the medical profession, either through research or development/manufacturing of medical products that solve existing ergonomic challenges of current equipment and products.
2. Your passions
In pursuing your side hustle as a medical professional, you should consider doing something you are passionate about. Whether you are a medical doctor, dentist, or nurse by profession, there are certainly other things you love doing. By engaging in your passions, it will be easier to find a side hustle outside your regular busy daily schedule as a health worker.
3. Factor in your time
You need to consider how much time you have from your profession. Each medical profession has its unique time requirement.
When choosing a side hustle, you need to accept the fact that you may have to make more sacrifices and strip off not-too-important things from your daily schedule to make adequate time for your main and side hustle. This is why you need to opt for something you are passionate about so that you can stay motivated all year long.
4. Lucrativeness
You also want to consider the profitability of the side hustle before you begin, especially if you have more than one option on your list. This can keep you excited and motivated to pursue your side hustle when you feel like quitting.
Though lucrativeness is something you may consider, you should not be too fixated on profits as you can never tell the extent your side hustle can get, and also, you would succeed if you do something you are passionate about.
Also, avoid venturing into a side hustle opportunity only because someone else is doing well at it. You may be disappointed when you don’t make any money from it within the first few months.
7 Best Side Hustles for Medical Professionals
Having looked into the importance of pursuing your side hustle and the various factors you need to consider, I will be showing you some side hustle suggestions as a medical professional. These side hustles will enable you to leverage your skills and expertise while offering flexibility and additional income.
1. Medical Writing and Blogging
You can leverage your medical knowledge to create insightful articles for the general public. There are many medical misconceptions that people may need clarification for. Offering your expert knowledge can be a side hustle that can fetch you additional money, satisfy your desire to teach, or make you known outside the spheres of the hospital.
To pursue your side hustle as a medical writer or blogger, you have the options of starting your own blog and building it from there or writing with established medical platforms after you have shown your expertise in the public space. I’d personally recommend you start writing for yourself until you have garnered the authority to write for other bigger platforms.
2. Telemedicine Consultation
Telemedicine is one aspect of medicine that is gradually becoming a part of mainstream medical practice. With the rise of digital communications and connectivity, a doctor can now have a consultation with a patient from any part of the world.
Many people seek quick answers to their health challenges before going to the hospital. Though there is a lot of medical information on the internet they can easily assess, that information may not be helpful until someone with more medical knowledge puts it in context to their own situation.
This is why telemedicine consultation is a side hustle you can start working towards as a medical professional. The same medical consultation skills as in physical consultation also apply to telemedicine consultation, only that it is over a call or chat.
3. Health Vlog or Podcast
With a health vlog or podcast, you can teach people about common and uncommon medical conditions, lifestyle modifications, and first aid that they need to know about. Having a health vlog or podcast is a way you can entertain your audience while sharing helpful medical knowledge that can help them make better lifestyle choices that affect their health.
Any medical professional can run a health vlog or podcast as long as you get the required skills and materials for such. However, you must ensure that you give out verifiable information about health and not add to the large number of misinformation on the internet today.
4. Locum Tenens
Locum tenens which means “to hold a place” is a practice of temporarily filling in for other physicians or healthcare givers who may be compulsorily away from the workplace. This is a lucrative side hustle for any health professional as it can come with travel benefits, accommodation, and feeding allowances depending on the situation.
The nature of healthcare requires that health workers have to be with patients almost every time of the day until they are eventually discharged from the hospital. However, a doctor on duty may have a serious emergency he/she may need to attend to. And if you are open to locum tenens as a side hustle, you can fill that void and earn an extra income for yourself and your family.
This applies to other healthcare professionals like nurses, laboratory workers, etcetera.
4. Medical Research
While pursuing your medical practice, you can concurrently venture into medical research as a side job or passion. Medical research entails conducting research projects that contribute knowledge to the advancement of healthcare while providing an additional stream of income and professional growth opportunities.
If you are passionate about statistics, testing hypotheses, or creating verifiable facts, medical research is a side hustle you should start now. You also have the option to partner with other people in your research or do it purely on your own.
5. Medical Products and Apps Development
In the growing world of technology and artificial intelligence, medically oriented-apps and digital products are constantly being invented and reinvented. Also, medical products are always been used and required in medical facilities.
You can start your side hustle as a medical professional by creating medical devices like syringes, infusion fluids, needles, surgical instruments, etc. This can give you an additional source of income as a medical professional while also keeping you more relevant outside the clinic.
Getting involved with medical products and app development can increase your knowledge base and skill set. It can also improve your relevance and public reputation while giving you an additional stream of income as a medical professional.
Lastly, with the involvement of medical professionals who actually use these products on a daily basis, you can better identify what needs to be improved in those products to improve patients’ care and health workers’ comfort and safety.
6. Fitness and Wellness Coach
As a medical professional, you are well aware of the lifestyle approach in the control of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cancer, obesity, etc. Nutritional discipline, exercise, weight control, and lifestyle choices like smoking and drinking, have a major impact on non-communicable, non-infectious diseases.
Becoming a fitness and wellness coach is a side job you can take up as a medical professional. Combining your medical knowledge with being a fitness and wellness coach can make you stand out from the crowd, giving you more recognition, as well as an additional stream of income.
7. Online Medical Tutoring
Medical students and professionals are constantly in search of simplistic explanations of medical concepts for school examinations and medical practice, respectively. You can leverage your medical knowledge and your passion for teaching by taking online medical tutoring as a side job.
Today, several platforms exist where you can publish online tutorials and make money from your content. Depending on your professional qualification at the time, you can apply to large online medical platforms (e.g., MedSchoolCoach in the US) or publish independent video, text, or PowerPoint content helpful to medical students and professionals.
Also, depending on your interest or specialization, you may target medical students, pre-med students, or medical professionals.
Venturing into online medical tutoring as a side hustle can also make you more renowned outside clinical practice while also giving you a flexible alternative source of income.
Other Side Hustles for Medical Professionals
As long as you have a brain, there is no limit to what you can do as a medical professional. Though it might be easier to venture into a side job related to your profession, nothing stops you from doing other things unrelated to the profession.
As a medical professional, you can venture into things like business, e-commerce, brand promotion, creative writing, art, music, or just anything you have an interest in, as long as you can manage your time between your medical profession and your side hustle.
Very few people can combine being a medical professional (for example, a doctor) and other non-related side hustles as above. Thus, venturing into other side hustles you are passionate about will make you truly stand out and be well-recognized in no time.
Addition Side Hustle Tips for Medical Professionals
Starting and building up your side hustle as a medical professional can be difficult. Here are some helpful additional tips to improve your chances of success in your side hustle.
1. Define the long-term plan for your side hustle
From the word go, you should define the long-term plan for your side hustle. Do you want to establish your side hustle into a full business that can completely supplement your profession, or do you just want to use it as a means to reach out to people? You need to clearly define whatever objectives you have towards your side hustle and plan how you want to achieve them.
Your planning should also involve outlining the possible challenges you may encounter and ways you can surmount them. If there are any financial requirements, you should prepare adequately for them too.
2. Make feasible funding plans for your side hustle
Getting started with a side hustle may require some funds. It’s like a new business that needs money for its establishment. But once you have become balanced in your side hustle, you can start earning money from it.
Even if it requires you to invest money from your profession into your side hustle, it will be worth it. When you have succeeded in establishing your side hustle, it might be able to stand on its own.
3. Learn time management
When starting up your side hustle as a medical professional, you will realize that time management is one of the most important skills you need to develop. Being able to manage your time and consistently make some time for your side hustle is one of the most important things you need to achieve your side hustle dream.
As a note of caution, time management is not a vocation of perfection. Don’t be discouraged when you miss out on some schedules because of the demands of your main profession. Consistency is about picking up from where you left off.
4. Learn to work remotely
Leveraging the capabilities of Internet communication will open up numerous side hustle opportunities for you as a medical professional. For example, online consultation, tutoring, and medical research all require some level of remote working with students, patients, and peers. Hence, remote working is something you have to learn to be comfortable with.
7. Build your social media brand
Social media is a place where you can get free brand visibility if you build your social media presence. Having a large social media base can increase your reach for your side job and the products and services it offers. Hence, it will be a good idea to grow your social media presence concomitantly with your side hustle and medical profession.
8. Create a healthy balance
Studies have identified that there could be a potential conflict of interest between an employee’s side job and his/her main profession. This is possibly why public policies do not encourage workers to take up side hustles.
But with the new economic trends where people are uncontrollably exploring side hustle opportunities, the best bet is to find ways to create a healthy balance between your main job and side hustles to avoid affecting your performance at work.
In essence, you should ensure compliance with employment contracts or guidelines to avoid failing in your duties as a doctor or other medical professional.
Conclusion
Doctors and health professionals are increasingly venturing into side hustles, leveraging new digital technologies, and pursuing their passions. You can join the train to build an additional source of income for yourself.
There are many benefits of having a side hustle as a medical professional as have been discussed in this article. You should be able to identify some benefits that appeal to you from the list discussed above.
Tight schedules are by far one of the most significant challenges in pursuing a side hustle as a medical professional but there are ways you can overcome those challenges.
If you feel confident to start your side hustle now, you can pick out from any of the suggestions above. But remember, you can do just anything you are passionate about as long as you have the right knowledge, adequate interest, and know how to balance your time between your profession and side job(s).
