CNN Senior Correspondent
HIAWATHA, Iowa (CNN) - As Dr. Jennifer Lickteig examines patients at the Linn Community Care Health Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she's also earning money from a second career that has nothing to do with medicine.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2009/LIVING/worklife/10/07/mainstreet.ebay.doctor/art.ebay.doc.cnn.jpg caption="Dr. Jennifer Lickteig started her online clothing business while taking time off from medicine to raise her family. "]
Lickteig runs a clothing store on eBay, where she's a "Gold PowerSeller," ranking among the top 1½ percent of merchants on the online marketplace.
The 35-year-old family practitioner says she earned $120,000 last year on eBay, more than she did practicing medicine.
"It's just kind of this thrill," she said. "It think it's the thrill of having built up this business and just done it myself. I don't have to get an MBA. I don't have to have a storefront."
As health care reform threatens to shake up the business of medicine, recruiting firms promote alternatives for doctors at pharmaceutical, biotechnology, insurance and investment banking firms. But eBay?
Lickteig was juggling medicine with mothering her two boys when she became pregnant with twin girls. Once Natalie and Melanie arrived, Lickteig had to take time out from her practice.
Between feeding and changing her genetically identical daughters, Lickteig was online, discovering that she had the genes of a businesswoman - a trait that had been hiding behind her medical degree.