The Drop Out Club’s membership is growing, and your doctor could be the next to join.
This service, also known as DOC, was started by former medical professionals who later switched to business career tracks, according to the DOC’s website. DOC is intended to help doctors, scientists and biomedical professionals put their expertise to use in careers outside of traditional clinical and academic tracks.
Drop Out Club co-founder Dr. Rael Mazansky tells CNN Money:
“There’s growing dissatisfaction among physicians. … We’re trying to help them explore other options that would make sense.”
The Drop Out Club website serves as a job board that connects medical professionals seeking alternative employment with employers seeking to hire people with medical backgrounds. Employers who have used the service include nonprofits, financial institutions and biotechnology companies.
Over the past 18 months, Drop Out Club membership has more than doubled, with more than 23,000 members in 102 countries today, according to Mazansky.
Karine Kleinhaus is one former doctor and medical school faculty member who transitioned into a new career with help from the club.
She tells CNN that she enjoyed practicing as an OB/GYN but felt increasingly burdened by administrative aspects of the job:
“The environment has become very stressful, especially in obstetrics. It’s not the medicine part of it but things like shrinking [health insurance] reimbursements and legal concerns on top of the long hours.”
Within weeks of joining the Drop Out Club, however, Kleinhaus moved from medicine into a job as an account executive with a biotech-focused communications and marketing firm, CNN reports.
From there, she moved into her current job as a divisional vice president with biotech company Pluristem Therapeutics.
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