Join the American Board of SHITS Failures

Dear Dr. Meyers,

It was indeed a pleasure to meet you. You have an impressive failure resume and I encourage you to join us at the American Board of Sickcare Healthcare Information Technology Startup (SHITS) Failures.

Please submit the $100 non-refundable membership application. Requirements for membership include:

1. A sufficient number of digital health failures and an updated failure resume
2. Not too many failures, since then we presume your really haven't learned anything from your mistakes
3. Demonstration of your competency to recover from the failures
4. At least 5 years of experience pulling the plug on your ventures
5. 3 letters of recommendation from stakeholders who were part of your failed startup, one of which is from an investor who , in fact, encouraged you to fold your cards.
6. Your membership category. Medical students, residents and those who graduated from medical school within the last 10 years are eligible for a 75% dues discount since we assume you still don't know what you don't know when it comes to physician entrepreneurship. Academic physicians are likewise eligible for a discount as long as you submit a letter from your doctor verifying that you suffer from academentia and are participating in medical education reform trials.
7. Your willingness to serve as a mentor to someone who is about to make the same mistakes
8. A description of how you tried to avoid the failure of your last company and why you finally decided to pull the plug.
9. Your willingness to be on a publicly available database, similar to the national practitioner database for malpractice actions, for physician entrepreneur failures
10. Whether you would be willing to serve on the editorial board of the American Journal of SHITS Failures, our official journal.

You are also eligible to appear on the SHITShow, our podcast, where we talk about the fail fast fallacy.

Thank you again for joining us. Keep up the good work. Please accept our free gift of toilet paper to wipe it all away and start again and Kenny Rogers singing "The Gambler" ringtone for your iPhone.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs