You might be wondering to yourself as you read that title, “Here we go again, personal brand identity?” Yes, personal brand identity! 

As a surgeon, your personal brand identity should be distinct from your organization’s brand identity. Creating a robust personal brand identity earns the position of a trusted thought leader in your community, a feat that can transform your entire medical practice exceedingly. Can you think of any medical thought leader in your community?

What Is Personal Brand Identity?

We are in an era where life (including your medical practice) revolves around digital technology, where individuals have become the product. In that sense, brand identity becomes even more crucial to the success of your medical brand on a personal and business level. Building a personal brand identity as a surgeon allows you to showcase your unique values and surgical expertise

A powerful surgeon personal brand identity gives you an edge over your competition because you have built a robust brand identity based on personal purpose and aptitudes. This establishes you as a thought leader in your specialty, – a trustworthy, 

authentic leader.

What are you known for as a surgeon? When your name comes up in your circle and your medical community, what comes to the minds of your colleagues, patients, and employees? Are you known as the charismatic thought leader in your specialty? Will your colleagues often describe you as a visionary, professional, and authentic surgeon? These are instances of a personal brand identity. This is the persona that stands you out as a thought leader, and public perception as a surgeon.

Why Is Personal Brand Identity Essential to A Surgeon?

If you already have a brand identity for your medical practice, why do you still need a personal brand identity? if you don’t, why do you need to build a personal brand identity?

1. Personal Brand Identity Makes You a Trusted Thought-Leader: When you set yourself up as a doctor who knows his onions in a specific area, and who has established unique leadership skills and expertise in your field, you simply become a thought leader. Call it a celebrity doctor if you will. Your colleagues and patients will seek you out for authentic knowledge, treatments, and solutions. The impact of this will translate directly into the growth of your medical practice, revenue, and new patient acquisition.

2. Boosts Visibility: This is where social media activities and engagements become crucial. Social media is one of the potent means to showcase your personal brand. When you create that personal brand identity that exhibits your expertise and elicits trust, then social media, community outreach, or traditional media will magnify your potential and boost your visibility.

3. Career Advancement: With improved visibility comes unparalleled opportunities to expand and advance your medical career. The world will begin to inundate you with invitations for interviews, talk shows, and speakers at medical events. That is you transform into a thought leader as referrals and positive reviews flow in. Your website and social media platforms will become a sought-after fountain for authentic, relevant, and verifiable knowledge and data. 

4. Increase Patient Acquisition and Retention: Naturally, when people trust you, it is easier to convince them to patronize you without even trying. As a thought leader, you will not need to expend too much time and resources trying to get prospective and existing patients to believe in you. Your personal brand identity will achieve all that for you because it is a powerful way to build credibility. 

5. Solidify Your Distinctive Strengths and Capability: The deeper you delve into personal brand building, the more you learn your strengths, abilities and of course, weaknesses. You can keep improving on this as you will inadvertently be honing your knowledge while educating others.

How To Build Your Surgeon Personal Brand Identity As A Thought Leader 

Being a thought leader in your specialty is a direct path to building your surgeon personal brand identity. To be a thought leader though, you need to be a super expert in your specialty, have credibility, loyal followers, strong community involvement, and be open to continuous learning and growth. You, therefore, need to leverage these to build y

personal brand identity as a surgeon.

1. Expert in your Speciality: To become a thought leader, you need to be an expert in a specific area. To build a resounding personal brand identity, you need to find a niche for yourself. Find a problem within your specialty that patients/doctors are battling with and provide the solution. Merge that need with your ‘WHY’ and you have yourself a winner. If for instance your passion is in using Da Vinci robotics to make surgery less painful for women and you possess the requisite skills, then you have hit the jackpot. Run with it and make the best of it.

2. Build Credibility:  When you say that the robotic-assisted colonoscopy with da Vinci is less invasive, it should be just that – less invasive. Build credibility by spinning facts backed by evidence and figures and be consistent. Share this information across the board. That way, patients and colleagues can take your words to the bank and you can easily build your brand reputation.

3. Build a Loyal Community: How do you build a strong, loyal community that will translate into a strong personal brand? Online – Use Social media, Google My Business listings, review sites, and a user-friendly website. The use of informative video content is your best approach to attracting and maintaining a loyal community on these channels. Back that up with quality web copies, blog posts, guest posts, books, and podcasts. Offline, you actively participate in community outreach, webinars, and corporate social responsibility. Become a speaker, mentor, and of course, collaborate with other surgeons that will benefit your brand.

4. Continuous Learning and Growth. There is no room for stagnation, you must keep learning unless, of course, you want to become redundant. Once you fail to provide relevant, cutting-edge information and savviness, you lose your value as a thought leader. With that goes your personal brand identity into smithereens. 

Medical personal brand identity examples

Before we call it a wrap let’s look at some interesting and powerful medical personal brands.

• Dr. Vineet Choudhry. If you have heard of robotic-assisted surgery (who hasn’t?), then you must have heard about Dr. Choudhry. He demystifies robotic-assisted surgery via his personal brand Dr. Choudhry’s corner. He is a renowned thought leader in Robotic-assisted surgery and has performed over 2000 successful surgery 

• Dr. Patricia Salber is the Head of doctor weighs in an online platform that she uses to tell the world about cut-throat innovations in the healthcare industry among other medical-related issues.

• Dr. Ola Brown introduced the flying ambulance with her flying doctors initiative into the African medical space to make medical care more accessible. 

Conclusion

Surgeons believe that they already know their brand identity. Well, you may have an inkling, but it takes more than knowing your surgical skills and expertise to become a thought leader and build a powerful personal brand identity. The world’s perception of you will determine if you can transcend from an expert surgeon to a renowned thought leader. The steps we outlined above will guide you to create and sustain your personal brand identity as a thought leader in your community. You may consider inculcating a practical brand strategy to help you bridge the chasm from your current location to where you ought to be as a thought leader. Beyond the advantages we mentioned here, you will be astounded at the ripple effect of cultivating a personal brand identity on your personal life and medical practice as is the case with the medical personal brand identity examples. 

The world is your stage, conquer it!