Question: If you were just starting your career as a physician, would you choose employment or private practice? What factors would you consider in your decision?
Editor’s note: This response was edited lightly for brevity and clarity.
Dr. Lawrence Kaplan: If I was starting over, I would choose employment, primarily because I don’t believe anyone is “going out and hanging a shingle,” as it used to be called. The business aspect of medicine is unfortunately so complex that I don’t know if anyone is savvy enough to do it themselves, even if someone was thinking about direct primary care, concierge, etc. Realize that my answers are based on primary care/general internal medicine, which is what I do, but I believe that you’d get the same response from procedure-based specialists.
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