Its been six months since my last post.
We're still in Atlanta. Our condo will not sell. We cannot find a practice worth buying, although we haven't put a lot of leg work into finding an opportunity. I mean we look where people advertise but we haven't really gone out on our own to find/create an opportunity.
With the recent economic downturn it seems unlikely that a cold start would do anything but flounder for sometime. Would we even be able to get a loan?
In the last six months we've finished our work in Alaska. We've spent a month in Europe. Visiting family in Romania and then traveling in the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Upon our return from these travels we decided that we might as well devote the time we had while waiting for our condo to sell to try to find a public health position for me. If I could find a public health position in the US or Canada we would look into opening a practice in that city.
I sent out many unsolicited resumes and received some responses. Had some meetings. Nobody was really hiring but I began the very important process of networking.
I came across a temporary consulting position. I applied for said position. I was offered a different position in the same organization. They also offered my wife a position.
We've accepted these positions in principle and fully expect to be moving out of the country early 2009. This will be a minimum 2 year commitment. We will be training nurses and other health workers to do basic eye care in rural communities in developing countries.
We've contacted our optometric consultant and put our agreement on hold. I fully expect that we'll still open a practice. It just wasn't the right time. I still believe that private practice is the only way I can practice optometry. Not the only way to practice optometry just the only way for me.
In the meantime I continue to work fill-in jobs here and there trying to make ends meet.
By the time we return to the States (or Canada) we hope that our condo will have finally sold and that the economy will be more suitable to starting a new small business.
Life continues...
This is our journey from employed optometrists to practice owners. Feel free to follow along. Comments, questions, and rebukes are warmly welcomed.
7 comments:
Just stumbled across this blog and found so many parallels between what you and your wife have been experiencing and what my husband and I have. We graduated in 2004 in Canada (you can take a quick geuss what school since I'm not writting in french). We were so dismayed at the lack of jobs when we finished- I was a 30yo asking my parents for rent money and defering student loan repayments as I sat for 12 hour shifts seeing at times no patients for a terrible percentage in someone elses " great opportunity" side-by side. We moved to a remote natural resource based part of canada and bought an optical that had a lane and bleed it dry until we could sell it as a satellite to someone who drove 3 hours to run it. The office paid off our student loans and then some, but we were going crazy being so isolated in a dying area reliant on insurance plans (canada too). We moved back to the area we were from and have been seeking associate positions. I have one that I drive 1 1/2 hours to 3 days/week that pays well -but it is really a locum. My husband does not. He has looked at the "great opportunities" OD's adverstise which translates to " you can sit on your duff evenings and weekends and grow my practice for me while I pay you pitiful percentages and leave you with nothing once you are done". We have considered opening cold but feel that the market is so saturated. We have looked at buying - but aren't millionaires. We are looking at going back to school and starting over because we don't feel love the profession either. Bizzaro world - I have even toyed with doing a MPH. Hope you two are doing well and hope to see an update soon.
Post a Comment