OK, I'm going to hand the keyboard over to my other half now. Watch out. He's not much of a typist.

1. How did you decide to get into this field of work?
i practice cardiology (heart medicine).It's what I became interested in early in medical training since heart disease affects so many people adn i knew there would always be aneed for practitioners in this area, specifically those who do interventional cardiology. I was interested in medicine itself from the time I was a teenager.

2. Do you have employees working for you, and do you deal with the salary's?
Yes. My practice employs 48 people, including 5 other physicians and a variety of nurses, technicians and office staff. I approve the doctors', nurses and medical/echocardiogram tech salaries, but my office manager deals with the the office staff salaries and handles the actual payroll.

3. What makes your company stand out from others?
we like to think patients receive better care at this practice than they might find elsewhere. that's our goal. Cardiology involves caring for many elderly patients. In other places where I worked, physicians didn't take enough time to fully talk to them or explain things or just spend time reassuring them. I wanted to make sure we weren't rushing patietns through even if it meant less money coming in.

4. How many hours do you work a week to get the job done?
nowadays i usually work about 35 - 40 hours per week. that number is higher if there's a heavy load of patients in the hospital or undergoing procedures. It's often higher during the coldest winter months. In the past, I've worked much longer hours. The good thing about having my own practice is the operation still functions even when I'm not in the offce.

5. How did you start your business?
For the first six years after residency, I worked in other people's practices. Cardiologists tend to cluster in groups rather than working independently. i originally bought into a new practice as a partner with two other partner-doctors and we built the practice together. Then one of the partners left to move to the west coast and the remaining two of us bought him out. Then the second partner retired about 11 years ago, and I bought him out. The other physicians who work in my practice aren't partners/owners.