The Health Practitioner's Journey: Your Ultimate Four-Stage Guide to a

This book is for anyone who sees allied health or indeed professional practice as their chosen career. Should you be a new graduate or someone towards the end of your career, you will find yourself somewhere along the path of the Health Practitioner's Journey.

The Health Practitioner's Journey is based upon my experience as a practitioner who started a professional career as a sports physio, then worked in multidisciplinary practices, becoming a manager, then an owner and developer of allied health businesses. I have used the timeline from that journey as the basis and structure of this book, breaking up my career into what I'm going to call four stages that are represented in the Health Practitioner's Journey. This covers my career from graduation day up until now.

The four stages are:

1. Clinical Excellence

2. Commercial Success

3. Maximise Equity

4. Leverage Equity

I have known some practitioners who have paused their career at Clinical Excellence or Commercial Success, which is absolutely line. They are happy with their work and are successful in it and pausing there has suited them. Also note that at the completion of stage four there is more. I have included a chapter that I call Harvesting Knowledge, where practitioners have used the skills learnt on the journey to do different activities in their career, just as I have done.

Harvesting Knowledge sits behind each of the four sections, which I will explain when we get there. I have also used the metaphor of the list as the path. When you begin practice you build a list of patients to treat. As you become more competent, you begin to own that patient list. That means you have loyal patients who will follow you and ask for you when they need assistance. As you continue in practice and your list becomes larger, you will develop Commercial Success. The next stage is to lead your patient list, which means using new skills to engage others to work with you in a business that you might commence. Finally, the list you have nurtured, and taught others to do the same, becomes an asset that you can sell when that time comes for you which I call Leveraging Equity.

"It's wise, it's practical - it's essential ... I'm sure this book will be much-loved by the next generations of healthcare practitioners."

Professor Karim M. Khan AO

"If only I had this book when I was starting my sports medicine journey - it would have saved me making lots of mistakes along the way. Every health practitioner would benefit from Mike Kenihan's wisdom."

Peter Brukner OAM, D Sc, MBBS, FACSP

"The Health Practitioner's Journey should be embraced by all - aspiring first-year students through to seasoned health practitioners. Read this book and keep it as an ongoing resource."

Cris Massis Board Member, Osteopathy Australia