Lessons in Raising a “DPC Family”
Last week, we went on vacation like many families do. And we had reunions, we had laughs, we had deep conversations, and we explored our mid-life crises with trusted ones. But when having a conversation with my brother-in-law on our long car ride in Washington, we began the conversation of what it means to be an entrepreneur and the impact it has on families. Perhaps some of us are inherently entrepreneurial, and perhaps others are exposed and trained.
When I look back at my own personal experience, my father was a businessman, an immigrant, a one-man show trying to give us opportunities. But unlike his life, where he worked primarily from home, made his own schedule and didn’t necessarily deal with life-and-death-situations, we began to talk about the impact on families and children. In my case, my dad worked from home and my mom was a stay-at-home-mom, so I had access to both my parents whenever I needed them. It was normal for me to be around them.
And yet, when I look at the world of Direct Primary Care and being a DPC doctor, I am often faced with the question of what is the consequence of my choice for my children. Being married to a Physician, our lives are already abnormal in many ways. We use phrases like, “let me sign out the kids to you,” and oftentimes answer phone calls with a “Is it an emergency” vs. “Hello, how are you?” Perhaps it’s the physician instinct of triage that becomes a part of who we are.
So while I learned from my father that a self-made businessman could take month-long vacations, he could work from home, he could spend as much time as he wanted with children, he didn’t have to hire anyone, or did he have to report to anyone, being a DPC physician often takes a different journey.
To start, we can’t do it alone. Well, not all of us at least. Some DPC docs are right out of residency, and so perhaps the salary change from a resident salary to a new DPC doc salary isn’t much of a difference (and frankly speaking may help offset some initial loan payments). But for many of us, it means sacrificing an attending level salary to placing a burden on someone else or another system (bank, investors, etc.), to build this dream.
And many of us are serial entrepreneurs. You have your DPC physicians who also have marketing agencies, consulting companies, benefits companies, tech companies, educational companies, etc. It begins to raise the question of how do you allocate your time. And how do you decide how to involve your family.
DPC has always been a family event for us, right from the start. And initially, I was concerned about it. We are traditionally taught to separate personal and professional lives. My initial patients didn’t know who my children were, or if I even had them. Now, sometimes my kids greet them in the office. And as I watched them, I learned some things.
- Lesson 1: Involve your children in public events (if you have them). We know our children copy us, but sometimes it shocks us. I learned early on to involve my children in the practice as if it was theirs. They would make silly posters marketing the practice on their own, and while I would initially hesitate because it didn’t look professional, I realized that sometimes authenticity is more valuable. My children attend every booth and marketing event. They have on their own learned the words and phrases I use to communicate the benefit of the practice to others. They learned how to entice other children will balls and goodies to our booth so that I could talk to the parents. They learned that they could give brochures away and be far more successful than I could since after all, who could say no to a young children who wants to help you save money? And as I saw my children WANT to help organize booths, set up things, talk to people, I realized that they were gaining skills and real-life experience. And yes, does it mean at times there is less time at home, for sure. But have I realized that I am contributing to their lives in modeling behaviors that they can copy and make their own? Yes.
- Lesson 2: Talk to your children about your thinking. Along the conversation with my brother-in-law, we discussed how each generation tries to ensure the next is better. Such is our case as well. Yet, as children of two physicians, whether they know it or not, they are privileged. And yet while I make decisions in my practice about how to work with the underserved or how DPC can help individuals of all socioeconomic strata, I learned that I need to share with them my thinking, so they understand that we can choose to allow to pass profit on a particular issue or scenario to allow opportunities for others that we take for granted. But unless we go out of our way to share that thinking with our children, they don’t know that we are doing it. And owning a business is no joke – there are ups and downs with the market, there is no guaranteed income. Lessons that other businesses and trades know but as doctors we often don’t know anything about especially if we only know of the world of academia.
- Lesson 3: Ask your children their ideas. This was a new one for me. When we would prepare for an event or offer a service, I have learned to ask my children what they think. This does a few things. It makes them understand they are valuable, and that we want to know what they think. It gives us a whole new perspective that we may miss or have not thought of. It allows them to understand that not all of their ideas may be used in the work setting but it doesn’t mean we won’t seriously consider them. And lastly, on those days that you have to stay later in the office and that you have extra work to do at home or carry with you, they understand because they are a part of the journey.
Many of us struggle with work-life balance in DPC, and sometimes we come into it FOR balance, and some succeed. And sometimes until the success of the practice comes, it is VERY imbalanced, and we worry about what we are giving up. So as I reflected, I learned that while I was giving up a lot to chase this dream and ambition, and while I thought I would be taking away something from my children, I also realized I was giving them something that I didn’t know I could.
