The Dark Side of Medicine

Everything you didn't know about the business of medicine

The Dark Side of Medicine

Medicine isn't only about treating patients. There is an entire economy behind it that most doctors are never taught. Interventional cardiologist Dr. Irfan Siddiqui opens it up — from the first day of residency to owning your own practice.

Buy the book Start with Chapter 1
Cover of The Dark Side of Medicine by Dr. Irfan Siddiqui: a gloved hand holding a syringe filled with a rolled dollar bill

Think outside the pipeline

The road from medical school to a first job can take eight to fifteen years. Most people can't put their finances, families and ambitions on hold for that long — and an "I'll deal with it later" attitude doesn't work. The Dark Side of Medicine is written for the intern, the nurse, the resident and the newly qualified physician: the people about to step into the system, and the ones already inside it wondering why it works the way it does.

Drawing on his own path from Miami to the cath lab to building his own practices, Dr. Siddiqui explains how hospitals bill, where the money goes, why doctors struggle with debt, and how thinking like a business owner — early — changes what's possible.

How the system works

Billing, coding, insurance and the hospital economy most clinicians never see from the inside.

Think like a business

Debt, ownership, and why a doctor should treat their career like a company from day one.

Build a life, not just a career

Balance, rest, and keeping more than one burner going on the stove.

Chapter by chapter

A new chapter companion is added every week: what the chapter covers, the ideas worth taking away, and a line or two from the book. New to the vocabulary? Start with the business of medicine glossary.

  1. Chapter 1The Early Days — how hospitals really make moneyRead
  2. Chapter 2From College to the HospitalRead
  3. Chapter 3Business 101Read
  4. Chapter 4Walking the Balance BeamComing soon
  5. Chapter 5The Big ThreeComing soon
  6. Chapter 6How the Cogs Come TogetherComing soon
  7. Chapter 7Going Off-RoadComing soon
  8. Chapter 8The Future of MedicineComing soon
  9. Chapter 9Different Roads, Different FuturesComing soon
  10. Chapter 10From School to HospitalComing soon
Dr. Irfan Siddiqui, interventional cardiologist and author of The Dark Side of Medicine

About the author

Dr. Irfan Siddiqui, D.O., FACC, FSCAI is an interventional cardiologist based in Central Florida with more than 25 years in medicine. He earned his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine at Nova Southeastern University, trained at Michigan State University — where he served as Chief Resident and Chief Cardiology Fellow — and completed his interventional cardiology fellowship at the University of Utah. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.

Board certified in internal medicine, cardiology and interventional cardiology, he has been named a Top Doctor for multiple years. His technique for atrial septal defect closure in the cardiac catheterization lab, which minimizes radiation exposure, is used nationally. On the business side of medicine he founded the Private Insurance Operating Cardiac Model, the Time Share Cardiac Suite Concept and the Doctor Lease Back program, and he teaches as an associate professor at local medical and nursing schools.

Alongside medicine he has built businesses in healthcare, medical-legal review, aerospace testing and investment, and is an associate producer of the films Sacramento and The Astronaut. Read his full biography →

"It's hard to beat somebody who never gives up."From the acknowledgements