SYLVIANE NUCCIO

Once you have graduated from medical school, you feel as though you are on top of the world and finally free from the burden of medical school.

However, life after medical school is a bit different, and there are some things that you can start preparing now to move your practice ahead faster and better.

A Secure Practice

Whether you practice in your own small office or work in a hospital for your residency, physically securing your place of business and securing all of the extremely sensitive data that you work with should be one of your top priorities. Learning to look for signs of data breaches can help you prevent disaster from striking your place of practice after you start working there.

You may not have a lot of control in your overall data security as a whole in your practice, but by getting to know your patients on a personal level and committing their data to memory, you can mitigate some of the losses and be personally invested in the security of your practice and its data.

Insurance

Just like you need auto, home, health, and life insurance, you will also need doctor’s disability insurance as well as malpractice insurance. You don’t know everything just yet, and you’re probably going to make a few mistakes. Malpractice insurance assures that you are safe in the event that you make one of those mistakes.

Disability insurance is more for your peace of mind as it is there to make sure that your medical career is not stifled by exposure to a disease while on the job or an accident that prevents you from practicing. The bottom line is that these are just as important as any other type of insurance and that your serenity is worth the investment.

A Support System

Times are going to get tough at times, but with a strong support system around you, you will be able to get through anything that life after medical school throws at you. Your support system could be:

• friends from medical school
• supportive family members
• fellow med school graduates at your residency
• older, more skilled doctors on staff

Any combination of these people will help you reach your true potential and celebrate with you when times are good as well as get you through tougher times. Through supporting yourself, you will support your patients even better as well.

A Debt Payment Plan

You have debt not just from undergrad school, but medical school now, too. You may be a doctor, but that does not mean that you are completely without your debts. Plan out a monthly budget so that you know you can have enough to live off of while also still making forward progress on your student debts. Refinancing your medical student loans can be a good option to help you save by paying back your debt at a lower interest rate.

Now is not the time to take out extra loans, although you should set some income aside for your retirement plans and other rainy day funds. Money may be tight now, but all of this will pay off not just in terms of dollars, but in the lives that you will help improve and even save.

A Willingness to Keep Learning

Medicine is always just “practice.” The moment that you realize that you do not, will not, and never will know everything and start asking questions to your patients and to fellow professionals about your patients, then you will have success years and years after medical school.

Though this is not something that you can buy or find, it is something essential if you want to do a good job within your residency and beyond. The desire to learn is something that everyone needs in their lives, but the desire to learn can also make the biggest impact on improving a patient’s quality of life.

Life after medical school is not going to be easy, but these five tips should help you find success in your residency and beyond.