Entrepreneur vs Doctor: The Daily Tug of War Nobody Prepares You For
Ask me about hormone protocols for low AMH -I’ll walk you through them like the back of my hand.
Ask me about handling a complicated birth or IVF cycle? I can assess, adapt, and act in seconds.
But ask me to negotiate a rent agreement, approve marketing designs, or talk budget strategy with a digital agency?
A year ago, I’d freeze. Or may be for a couple of them, even now.
Because no one teaches you this in med school.
And that’s the untold reality of being a doctor-turned-entrepreneur, especially when you’re a woman building something like Birthwave, a holistic wellness and fertility clinic in Chennai.
From White Coat to Business Suit: The Shift No One Talks About
In medicine, you’re trained to think linearly.
Symptoms → Diagnosis → Treatment → Outcome. That’s how medical school trains us. Even the final year practical exams follow the same rules. Stick to the plan. Talk to the patient, collect history, assess, do a head to toe examination (if required) or case related. Provisional diagnosis and Treatment plan. Something would work.
In business?
There is no protocol. No SOPs. No supervisor checking your work.
It’s experimentation, failure, trial, tweak, repeat.
What started as a dream to build a healing space for women -one that honours science and soul -quickly became a crash course in everything from clinic interior design to Instagram captions to payroll systems.
I Was a Clinical Genius (yeah, I think of myself like that and I believe every compassionate doctor should too. We rarely give ourselves enough credit for what we do). But a Managerial Beginner.
In those early days, every decision -from paint colours to patient experience workflows -went through my husband. I leaned on him for the backend, while I focused on the front-facing clinical work.
But here’s the catch: you can’t outsource vision.
And you can’t delegate brand voice if you haven’t found it yet.
As a gynecologist, I was used to being the expert.
As an entrepreneur, I became a student again.
It was not humbling in the beginning. I used to cry over vendor payments. Mismanage my finances (which I’m really good at). It was exhausting. And it was absolutely necessary, for me to do it by myself.
What They Don’t Tell You About Running a Clinic in India as a Doctor
1. Medicine Trains You to Be Clinical. Business Demands You Be Strategic.
Every day, you toggle between two completely different mindsets:
• One where every second matters and every decision can save a life.
• And another where decisions take weeks, involve multiple stakeholders, and are often about colours, fonts, or funnel metrics.
The tension is real.
Imagine wrapping up a consultation and then being expected to discuss ROIs or negotiate rent. Or pay those vendors.
It feels disjointed -because it is.
But you do it anyway. Because vision needs execution, and your clinic is not just a space -it’s a living organism that needs both your head and your heart.
2. The Guilt Is Constant. And Complex.
This one hit me hard.
When I spent time working on SOPs, process design, or team meetings, I felt like I was abandoning patients.
And when I prioritized patient time, I felt like I was neglecting the business.
The truth?
Both need you. But only one gets you at a time.
This is the emotional tax of dual roles, and it disproportionately impacts women in healthcare.
Because we’re conditioned to believe that caregiving is the only worthy pursuit -not empire building.
But here’s the mindset shift that helped me:
You can’t pour from an empty clinic. If your systems are broken, your care delivery suffers too.
3. Burnout Has Layers -And It’s Not Always Clinical
As a doctor, I’ve seen emotional burnout -the kind that comes from holding space for pain, grief, and life-altering decisions.
But entrepreneurial burnout?
It’s mental fatigue on steroids.
It’s:
• Decision fatigue after back-to-back meetings.
• Constantly firefighting operations.
• Feeling like your brain is open in 10 tabs at once. And my phone too.
As both?
The burnout is multi-dimensional. And lonely.
Especially in a country like India, where healthcare entrepreneurship by women is still in its infancy.
There’s no playbook. No mentor. No network.
You’re often the first -and only -in your circle doing this.
That’s why community matters.
That’s why visibility matters.
And that’s why I started sharing more of this side of my journey -not just the patient success stories, but the personal struggles behind the scenes.
4. Marketing, Visibility, and the Medical Taboo of ‘Selling’
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room:
Doctors don’t market.
And if they do, it’s frowned upon.
But here’s the irony:
In today’s world, if you don’t share your voice -someone else will speak for you.
And in a space like holistic fertility and natural birthing, the misinformation is rampant.
So yes -I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew about professionalism and start from scratch:
• Writing Instagram captions
• Shooting reels
• Recording voiceovers
• Learning SEO
• Creating brand narratives
Not to “sell” -but to serve.
To reach the women who are looking for an alternative. A softer, science-backed path to fertility, pregnancy, and healing.
Because if we stay silent, the noise wins.
Building The Birthwave Wasn’t Just About Starting a Clinic -It Was About Starting a Culture
From the start, I knew this wasn’t going to be a regular gynecology setup.
I wasn’t building an OPD.
I was building a movement.
A place where:
• Women don’t feel rushed during consults.
• IVF isn’t the only solution offered.
• Birth is seen as sacred, not scary.
• Healing includes reflexology, nutrition, mental health, and yes -evidence-based medicine.
The Birthwave became a mirror of my philosophy -and it forced me to grow as both a doctor and a leader.
Because once you create a brand, you don’t just represent yourself.
You represent a promise.
And keeping that promise -every day, every patient, every team member -is the real leadership work no one applauds.
Lessons I’ve Learned As a Woman in Medical Business
1. Clarity is a compass.
The clearer you are about your why, the easier it is to say no to distractions.
2. Invest in systems before scale.
Beautiful branding means nothing if your booking process is a mess or your follow-ups don’t happen.
3. You need a dream and a dashboard.
Vision needs numbers. Gut feeling needs data. If it isn’t measurable, it isn’t scalable.
4. You will outgrow people.
And that’s okay. Not everyone who starts with you will stay till the end.
5. Healing isn’t just for patients.
You need to create healing systems for yourself too -therapy, mentorship, support circles, time off.
The Truth I Now Know and Own
• You can hold space for science and still dream like a visionary.
• You can walk out of a labour room and into your backyard to have those difficult conversations about your business with your support system -and still show up with presence in both.
• You can build a brand that heals -and still remain deeply clinical, rooted, and relevant.
To every doctor who’s also an entrepreneur You’re not just healing bodies.
You’re healing systems.
You’re redefining the future of healthcare in India.
And it’s time we spoke about it more.
Why This Matters -Especially in India
In a country where the default healthcare model is still hierarchical, patriarchal, and transactional—
Creating a holistic, women-led, integrative clinic is revolutionary.
And it’s not just about the patients.
It’s about the way we run businesses.
It’s about the culture we build for our teams.
It’s about rewriting the rules of how healthcare leadership looks and feels.
The Birthwave isn’t just a name.
It’s a ripple in the system.
One that began with me -a clinical mind with no business degree - choosing to step up, ask questions, fail forward, and keep building.
Final Words: You Don’t Have to Choose
You can be both.
A doctor and a founder.
A clinician and a creator.
A healer and a strategist.
And maybe that’s what we need more of in the world right now —
Leaders who can hold life with one hand, and build legacy with the other.
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