This book is for anyone who sees allied health or indeed
professional practice as their chosen career. Should you
be a new graduate or someone towards the end of your
career, you will find yourself somewhere along the path
of the practitioner journey in this book.
The Health Practitioner's Journey is based upon my
experience as a practitioner who started a professional
career as a sports physio, then worked in multidisciplinary
practices, becoming a manager, then an owner and
developer of allied health businesses. I have used the
timeline from that journey as the basis and structure of
this book, breaking up my career into what I'm going to
call four stages that are represented in the above diagram.
This covers my career from graduation day up until now.
The four stages are:
1. Clinical Excellence
2. Commercial Success
3. Maximise Equity
4. Leverage Equity
The diagram shows a linear path with years indicated
because that was my path. However, I do not see the time
fragments as set in stone, and the time taken to achieve
milestones may be shorter or longer than what I have
indicated.
I have known some practitioners who have paused
their career at clinical excellence or commercial success,
which is absolutely line. They are happy with their work and
are successful in it and pausing there has suited them. Also
note that at the completion of stage four there is more. I have
included a chapter that I call Harvesting Knowledge, where
practitioners have used the skills learnt on the journey to
do different activities in their career, just as I have done.
It is added in 3D because it is relevant and sits behind each of
the four sections, which I will explain when we get there.
I have also used the metaphor of the list as the path.
When you begin practice you build a list of patients to treat.
As you become more competent, you begin to own that
patient list. That means you have loyal patients who will
follow you and ask for you when they need assistance. As
you continue in practice and your list becomes larger, you
develop commercial success.
The next stage is to lead your patient list, which means using new skills to engage others
to work with you in a business that you might commence.
Finally, the list you have nurtured, and taught others to
do the same, becomes an asset that you can sell when that
time comes for you.
