Birth to 2005
- Grow up as 1st generation Serbian American. Face the same struggles all children of immigrants do. Watch the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”. Our family life was similar but at times even funnier!
- Dream of becoming a doctor or dancer from age 5. Father encourages me to do the dancing as a hobby. Very grateful for this as my knees would not have held up.
- Attend undergrad (Ohio University), then medical school (The Ohio State University College of Medicine) followed by residency (Grant Medical Center in Columbus, OH)
- Train and Run my first marathon in the Fall of 1996 while working over 80 hours a week
- Choose Seattle as city to live in “when I grow up” for all there is to do in the outdoors and the receptiveness of the medical community in regard to family physicians performing obstetrical deliveries
- Enjoy the Pacific NW and my job immensely. Could not think of a better career feel fortunate I am so fulfilled.
- Fall in love and get married in 2000
- First practice fails in 2001. Very sad process, thankful that husband does not divorce me with all the financial losses. Motivated to one day run a successful business.
- Move my whole practice and nurse less than 1 mile down the road by becoming an employed physician. Don’t enjoy being told what to do by “business” people who have not a clue about the practice of medicine
- Stop doing obstetrical deliveries in January 2003
- Move to Chicago in April 2003 for husband’s job. Immensely sad to leave my lovely practice. It was the best!
- 1st son born 2004. Start really enjoying new practice in Chicago.
- Move to Qatar 2005
2005/6
- Read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and started thinking about the main point of the book “making your money work hard for you and not working hard for your money” There has got to be a better way to do this. There are only so many hours in day and only so many patients one can see.
- read many of the books in the Rich/Dad poor dad series and consider real estate investing
- while in Qatar work at Hamad Medical Center for 3 months followed by Qatar Petroleum’s clinics for 1 ½ years. Don’t get the same fulfillment out of practice
March 2007
- Take a year off to be with son and hope to be inspired about the next step for my 10 year plan: branching out into something else within medicine
- Have many article ideas to submit to parenting magazine but do nothing but enjoy son for one full year
May 2008
- Daughter is born
- Start researching a home health care business extensively in between breastfeeding, do medical consulting for a PR firm on the side. What a fun job!
Summer of 2008
- Write children’s book with 4 year old son while on our daily walk. Idea born form one of the many questions he asked on the walk
October 2008
- Decide that a home health care business will not allow me the flexibility that I would want and am not as passionate about it as I should be, abandon idea but have plethora of information about starting a business
April 2009
- Move back to the Pacific Northwest to restart clinical practice ¾ time
- Husband’s job put on hold in the USA on arrival, my contract still solid…hmmm, husband returns to Qatar and I become a pseudo-single working mom
- Really enjoy return to medical practice. Have missed it immensely. ¾ time as doctor is almost the right balance as a working mom.
December 2009
- With no jobs in sight for my husband for 1-2 years with an emphasis on 2, we decide to reunite the family in Qatar. Resign from position very sad about leaving many of the same patients for a second time
January 2010
- Prompted by a friend to write my annual “Girlfriend Fashion and Beauty Newsletter” which I had abandoned for several years
- Write the letter but include health care tips this time
- Letter received with worldwide acclaim… joking received to the enjoyment of my friends
- One spectacular friend compliments the letter and says that I should do a blog.
- Apply for remote position in the USA after being told that “after 2 weeks of training in City X in the United States we never have to see you”. Disclose that we will temporarily have to move back to Qatar. Door to this job closes as young recruiter thinks we will be living in the desert in tents without internet. Timothy Ferriss would be kicking me for this disclosure.
Feb 2010
- Move back to Qatar
- Apply online to be a healthcare blogger for a couple positions, nothing comes through, realize salary is $10/hr
- Think why I should do this for somebody else. Idea for a website and medical blog incorporating my skills, hobbies and likes: healthcare, parenting, travel, fashion, and beauty
March 2010
- Listen to audio marketed specifically to doctors who want to start a medical internet business
- Intrigued by the fact that it seems so easy and no computer programming knowledge is necessary (lol)
- Join the Core Team founding the Qatar Professional Women’s Network. Very inspired as am surrounded by an amazing group of women
April 2010
- Attend a conference entitled “How Women Work” specifically for woman entrepreneurs
- Name for website is born during conference
- Read an newspaper article in paper 2 days before conference about the stunning figure advertisers pay to advertise on “mommy blogs”
- Pitch website to the whole conference, interest sparked amongst those in attendance
- Attend a gala that evening: turned onto Internet Business Mastery podcasts by one friend and frightened to death by a new acquaintance about having to know computer programming. This person says name for my site is too long. I disagree.
- Listen to almost 30 hours of internet business podcasts in the matter of a couple weeks go into information overload
June 2010
- Attend social for follow up to “How Women Work”, asked what I have done on the site… Nothing but listening to the podcasts. Start putting together action plan.
- Find flyer for a 3 day conference in San Diego on medical internet businesses, convince husband I must go.
- Read the books: Internet Riches and Blogging for Fame and Fortune
July 2010
- Attend conference in San Diego on internet business, learn a heap
- Reminded of the “The 4 hour work week” which I read in 2007, download kindle version, re-read it again
- Go on vacation to Cyprus the remainder of the month
August 2010
- Launch logo contest on 99designs.com, very fun process. Receive lots of designs with 2 particularly good ones, choose a design (hope you like it!)
- Take monumental task of launching website and break into 12 mini steps for simplicity.
- Set deadline of 6 weeks to write minimum of 12 articles of content and design 24 WebPages to have website ready for AAFP conference starting on Sept 29,2010 so can market the site to my peers
- Reread “4 hour work week”, funny how none of the technical details of the book made sense (doing split tests etc) until now
- Attempt to set up site… despite being a learning process very frustrating. Hire free lance designer, phew!
- Copyright children’s book
- Soft launch of website: September 17, 2010
- For the remainder of my journey follow my blog under My Projects and don’t forget to email me your experiences to drrajka@expatdoctormom.com if you are starting a new business or becoming an entrepreneur
