Dr Simon Wilson Archives

What will success look like? When will you know that this new venture is working well and meeting your goals – be that financial, time, helping your ideal patient? Will it be the first billing of a particular item number specific to your niche?

Winston Churchill quote: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts

For me a feeling of success with my vasectomy work was when I was spending 20% of my time with my ideal group – men seeking vasectomy, either discussing and educating or providing vasectomy. It took a good deal of time, focus and work to get there however there are benefits. I can tolerate a lot of midweek GANFYD and declined referral from the big hospital consults with the knowledge that on Friday I have a solida day of procedures, helping couples out and practising a nice moderately technical procedure that I am good at.

So what is success for you? Maybe is is seeing your overall income increase by a certain%. Maybe it is seeing any income that is not from fee for service consulting but is from some one to many work you do – lecturing, downloaded assets you built, consulting to business.

Maybe it is seeing less of the wrong type of patient for you. Don’t fret on this – there is the perfect doctor out there for this patient that does not gel with you, now they are free to find them.

Depending on how granular you desire to be about this goals, some benchmarks or Key Performance Indicators might guide you. Such as the number of your ideal pt in a week, billing a particular item number a certain number of hours in your ideal work. Taking a snapshot of where you are now and where you aim for would help you feel progress is occurring. As we know without a goal we have not direction. By discussing with others we can make this goal real and bring some accountability to the process. Could you be part of a discussion/coffee group that are also working on their niche? This can bring accountability but also mutual support and encouragement.

What is the reward for this aimed for success? The satisfaction of a job well done? That bicycle/clothing/shoes you have been coveting? A special meal or bottle of wine?

If you would like a prompt to help think about your ideal niche, I have a three page pdf here to download

This post is about finding my GPwSI niche. How I developed toward my niche general practice work but never in a straight line! think I have made developing your GPwSI niche sound straightforward in some prior posts. Of course life and work is never that simple! Life takes a meandering course and small twists and turns arise that looking back are important to your journey.

screenshot of directaccessvasectomy.com website by Dr Simon Wilson

I have been developing a GPwSI in sexual health – PREP, MTOP and vasectomy. The vasectomy work has increased as the local tertiary hospitals have stopped offering this. This is useful, satisfying work to do, offering men and couples safe reliable contraception going forward. Obviously not everyone wants to spend 45minutes with an anxious man and his scrotum but it works for me! Providing vasectomies makes up a bit less than 20% of my work currently but still provides a niche that allows me to really develop my workflows, feel confident and autonomous in this area and provides a procedural change in pace to general consulting.

I would love to say I sat down and planned this out but the truth is bumpier than this. I came to medicine as a graduate, I was enrolled to study agricultural science on leaving high school, worked on vineyards in a gap year, started a wine making degree and ended up with a microbiology degree! I then came across to graduate medicine at Flinders university and after graduation worked around South Australia in rural GP positions.

After the children I was working in metro GP and wanted to extend myself. I had a look at simulation in GP my old website is here and the use of ultrasound in GP work as niches to develop. I explored these areas, teaching medical students ultrasound and presenting on simulation at conferences but these areas did not gel as directions to fully develop my work. The skills are rare, but not particularly valuable. However these explorations were not wasted avenues – the ultrasound I use in sexual health work for medical terminations and scrotal US. The in situ simulation training we have used in our practice for collapse after IUD insertion training. Finding your niche is not automatic, but knowledge and experience build up and you bring these skills with you to new areas. Don’t be afraid to try on new identities to see if they suit you.

There did seem to be more demand for sexual health work in Preston however and following some Business for Doctors conferences and seeing the work of George Forgan-Smith and his approach around working for your ideal patient, I started to focus more on this sexual health work.

I now work in a mix of general GP consulting and sexual health – providing Prep and MSM sexual health, Medical Termination and vasectomy. I have given away IUD placement so other doctors in our clinic can focus on this. Work in your area of excellence, other GPs have other skills and interests.

To appeal to patients and allow them to find me, I have folded in other skills – video presentations, building templates, automation’s, pro-forma letters, referral pathways for other doctors. This maintains interest, variety and keeps me keen to get into the practice on Monday morning.

This blog grew out of supporting other GPs in our practice to work on finding their GPwSI niche. I’m keen to keep talking about how I got here and how to help others get there.

Dr Simon Wilson

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What would success look like for you?

Dr Simon Wilson – finding my GPwSI niche