It’s not just a job—it’s a calling.

That was the gist of ASPR keynote speaker ZDoggMD’s address to the Association of Staff Physician Recruiters (ASPR) at the association’s annual conference in San Diego.

ZDoggMD—an “international icon and man of mild-to-moderate mystery,” according to his website—treated the Monday morning crowd to a few of his “Weird Al” style YouTube hits. He spent the bulk of his time, however, sharing why he became a physician and how he’s changing health care today.

With a father in primary care and a psychiatrist mother, becoming a physician wasn’t as much ZDogg’s choice as it was a familial expectation. But after burning out after a few years in practice, ZDogg made a change. He left a system he deemed broken and started a new one—Health 3.0. It's a philosophy, a movement, that stresses a team of interconnected providers and a focus on patients.

It’s a mission he shared with us at ASPR, and one he often shares with a healthy dose of humor.

Throughout his journey, he told us, ZDogg came to understand that practicing medicine isn’t a job—it’s a calling. 

We can relate. Many of us who help physicians and physician recruiters see our roles as callings, too. 

Only 50 of the more than 500 conference attendees got to take a selfie with ZDogg after his talk (tag yourself in the Facebook gallery), but it sure was fun to watch everyone check under their seats for selfie sticks!

PracticeLink, an ASPR strategic partner, was honored to sponsor ZDoggMD’s keynote address. (We hope you get to take your conference tote bag to the beach this summer, too.)

At this year’s conference, we announced the exciting release of PL4—a series of new and next PracticeLink features that are sure to enhance your recruitment process. 

We enjoyed walking you through these features at the PracticeLink booth—a hotbed of premium daily giveaways—and hearing your ideas for the future.

We also enjoyed this: 

And this:

And a few more highlights:

• A beautiful—and early!—run along the water kicked off Monday morning with the 2nd annual ASPR 5k race:

• Providing awesome educational content to physicians through PracticeLink media:

• A wonderful gathering of our PracticeLink friends at the San Diego Wine & Culinary Center—including these winners of the "Guess the $100 bottle of wine" taste test: 

Lesley O'Connell from BayCare Clinic:

 ...And Candice Fitzgerald of IU Health!

These recruiters didn't win a $100 bottle of wine, but they had fun anyway! 

On Tuesday, we announced the winner of our Tiffany & Co. Prize Pack, Rebecca Bailey of Shawnee Mission Medical Center: 

And Kari Dalrymple from Carolinas HealthCare System won our bingo prize—Waterford stemless wine glasses and a nice bottle of wine!

We hope you had a great ASPR conference! See you next year in Chicago!