What to know about medical student entrepreneurship externships

?Landing an internship in a competitive industry like tech or finance can connect you to a supportive network, give you a job preview, learn valuable skills, help you find mentors and much more.

Medical student externships allow students to spend time doing clinical care, research, or other activities, usually for 4-6 weeks, outside of their home institution. There are several reasons why students take externships, but most have to do with being more selective or competitive choosing a residency in a specific medical specialty, particularly those that are highly competitive like otolaryngology, dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopedics. gastroenterology and cardiology.

Here are things to consider when choosing a residency if you are interested in entrepreneurship.

When choosing an externship, consider:

1. Geography
2. The structure, process and expected outcomes of the externship experience
3. How doing an externship in the business of medicine, innovation or entrepreneurship will positively or negatively affect your residency application
4. Focus on a clinical problem in a specialty that interests you at the time
5. Be sure to spend time integrating into the local or regional innovation ecosystem
6. Use the time to establish robust internal and external networks
7. Develop your entrepreneurial mindset
8. The experience might tempt you to forgo doing a residency. Think carefully about your decision. It's called physician entrepreneur for a reason and several years of clinical experience will hold you in good stead.
9. Do not do more than one externship. Use the time you have in medical school to experience other specialties and clinical problems during rotations at your home institution.
10. Do your research about institutions that might be the best fit for you e.g. digital health or AI infrastructure and academic entities, hospital care innovation centers, technology transfer offices and other innovation and value creation entities and people who run them. Few medical schools offer education and training in the business of medicine, innovation, or entrepreneurship so it might take some deeper digging to find one. Consider also spending time with a startup if your medical school will allow you that option. Use peer networks to get information about the experiences of others.

For example, here is a description of the artificial intelligence infrastructure at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

There is no guarantee that doing an externship in a particular place will land you the residency of your choice. Your hosts will have the opportunity to assess your competencies and fit as much as you are assessing theirs and could work for or against you.

Measure the success of your medical student entrepreneurship externship by the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and competencies you develop and your access to resources, networks, mentors, peer support, experience, and non-clinical career guidance.

Entrepreneurship rests on the foundation of mindset, means and motivation. Your externship should be another step in your entrepreneurial journey should you choose to pursue it.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack and Editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship