How Physicians Can Bring Clinical Expertise to the Startup World

Today, we’re exploring the many ways physicians can break into the startup world and make an impact. Whether you’ve considered founding a company, consulting for innovative health-tech startups, or joining an advisory board, this episode is packed with practical insights to help you get started.

I’ll share why startups are hungry for our clinical expertise, how our perspective is essential for designing smarter and safer healthcare solutions, and why now is the perfect time for physicians to get involved. From understanding the role of AI in healthcare to leveraging our skills to build better care models, this episode will inspire you to think differently about your career and the future of healthcare.

Episode Highlights:

[0:00] - Opening thoughts: Why startups need physicians and the opportunity to shape the future of healthcare.
[4:00] - The unique skills physicians bring to the table and how they align with startup needs.
[6:23] - Different pathways into startups: Founders, CMOs, advisors, and consultants.
[11:46] - Real-world examples of impactful startup roles, including AI and population health models.
[14:32] - Exploring fractional and interim roles for flexibility and impact.
[21:33] - Why the startup ecosystem is ideal for physicians looking to drive meaningful change.
[28:55] - Practical takeaways: How to start your journey into the startup world.

Resources:

Checkout our services at StartupPhysicians.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast, rate, and leave a review. Remember to share this episode with fellow physicians who might be interested in startups. Together, we can shape the future of healthcare! 

Transcript

Alison Curfman 00:00

The future of healthcare is being built right now. Startups are leading the charge, and they're

looking for people like you, people who understand patients, who value quality and who are

ready to think differently about what's possible. So if you've ever felt frustrated by the pace of

change in traditional healthcare, this is your chance to be part of something bigger. You can

shape the tools, the systems and the care models that will define the next generation of

healthcare. Hey there, and welcome to the second episode of startup physicians. I'm Allison

kirchman, and I'm just really excited to have you here as we keep going on this journey

together. So last week, I shared with you my personal journey in the startup world and what

inspired me to start this podcast. And today, I'd like to walk you through a really practical guide

of the different roles that physicians can find within the startup world to help you understand

what the variety of options are that could be available to you. So if you're a physician, chances

are you've spent most of your career practicing medicine in hospitals, clinics or private

practice. But what if I told you there's an entirely different world out there, one where your

clinical expertise can help shape the future of healthcare through startups. So this podcast is

for physicians who are curious about the startup world but don't really know where to begin. So

whether you're dreaming about doing what I did and founding your own company, or if you're

thinking more along the lines of wanting to consult with innovative health tech startups, or

you're just exploring what's out, there you are in the right place. So I wanted to share a little bit

about why I'm so passionate about this work. I'm a practicing pediatric emergency physician,

and a few years ago, I stepped into the world of startups. I co founded a company called

Imagine pediatrics, which focuses on care for high risk children on Medicaid. And it was really

an incredible journey, one that completely changed the way I think about healthcare and what

is possible when clinicians work hand in hand with other entrepreneurs, or become

entrepreneurs themselves. I started this podcast because I realized there's a huge gap in

resources for physicians who want to break into this space, and I've had the privilege of

working in this space for years, and I've seen firsthand how much of a difference we can make

as physicians, and whether that's designing safer, smarter healthcare technologies or helping

companies understand what patients really need. But I've also met so many doctors who feel

like this world is out of reach for them, many of them come to me and ask if they should get

their MBA, or if they should get another degree in clinical informatics, or if, you know, thinkthey don't have a good enough business background, or they think they have to have A

complete career change to get started, and that's simply not true. So over the course of this

podcast, we're going to explore what it takes for physicians to succeed in the startup

ecosystem. We'll cover everything from foundational concepts about startups and private

equity and venture capital other things like design thinking and product development and real

world stories from physicians and startup leaders who've made this leap. So if you've ever felt

stuck in a system that's really slow to change, or you're looking for new ways to make an

impact, I think you're going to love what we've got planned. So why should physicians think

about startups? We all know that healthcare is changing faster than ever before, with AI and

digital health tools all the way to considering new care delivery models, we're really in the

middle of a transformation. But the challenge is that so much of this change is happening

without meaningful input from physicians, and we really have a very unique perspective on on

patients and their journey through the health care system and what they really need from their

health care. So think about the last time you had to work with a piece of new technology in

your practice, whether it's an EMR or a new device or new workflow, how often did you feel like

it wasn't designed with real clinical workflows in mind, or worse, that it was actively making

your job harder? One of the things that I hear doctors talk about all the time. Time is their EMR

inbox. And you know, someone created that solution to a problem of patients wanting better

access or a more convenient way to access their healthcare team. But you know, some of us

wonder, did physicians actually have input on the design of the system, because, you know, we

now have doctors who are just inundated with epic inbox messages from their patients, and it

didn't, you know, stop to consider what that does to the doctor's workflow and whether it's

reasonable. And so that's just one example of many where we maybe haven't had a seat at the

table to develop some of these things, and that's exactly what happens when solutions are

developed without a deep understanding of patient care and physician care. And that's why it's

so important for us to be involved in startups that are really designing new capabilities and new

models and new methods and new technology, because it's going to be coming at a pace that's

uncomfortable for all of us, and particularly when I think of like aI models, it's I really, truly

believe that we need to be involved to put safeguards on those things. I want to talk a little bit

about what are some of the benefits of working with startups. So one of my favorite things

about working in this space is that startups are very nimble. They are not tied down by the

bureaucracy of hospital systems, which means they can innovate very quickly. But speed

doesn't always equal quality, and in fact, many times it does not equal quality, and that's

where we come in. We have the ability to bring a truly invaluable perspective to ensure that

these innovations are being developed in an exciting way, but also in a safe, effective and

grounded in real world practice way. And so I think that we have to think differently. It's a

different way of thinking than what we are traditionally taught in medical school, and we do

have to be willing to challenge the status quo and the way we've always done things, but it's a

skill you can learn, and I think that it becomes very meaningful when you realize that you've

been able to contribute to something so much larger than yourself. I know that I could never

have reached as many patients and changed as many patient lives in my day to day practice

seeing one patient at a time compared to starting my own company, and I think that's really

meaningful to know something I contributed to is now making a large impact. So when doctors

are interested in getting in start into startups, I tell them that now is actually the perfect time

for this. I have worked with a number of companies that are developing AI algorithms, and

they're really making their way into every aspect of healthcare. Population Health models are

another example of where physicians are very needed. So if you think about different

companies that are trying to address a specific population and maybe using value based care

and risk models to manage this population in a different way by providing new resources for

them, but they really need physicians to be able to help design those models, and it's really

changing how we think about patient care, and more and more health care is moving into thehome, and I sense that We will see a lot of that over the coming years, digital health platforms

are scaling faster than ever, and if we as physicians don't step in to help shape these tools, we

really risk repeating the same mistakes that we've seen before, when technology is created

without our input and then fails to truly serve patients and physicians in the way that we would

envision. So when I first started working in startups, one of the most exciting things for me was

the energy in some of the traditional healthcare systems that I had worked in before. I felt like

sometimes we would have really good ideas, but it was never feasible to change anything

rapidly or make significant changes, or even build something from scratch, and the change can

feel like it's happening at the pace of an iceberg melting, and it's frustrating. But startups are

really different, and it's they're filled with founders and teams who are really passionate about

their mission, fast moving and agile and completely committed to achieving the mission of the

product or company and being that kind. Environment is not just inspiring, it's also an

incredible way to make a real impact in a fast manner. So the bottom line is that the startup

world is brimming with opportunities for physicians. So whether you want to help design the

next groundbreaking technology or consult on new care delivery models, or even build

something of your own from scratch. This is the perfect time to get involved, and I'd like to

share some of the unique roles that physicians can play in startups. And what's really amazing

about this space is there's really no one size fits all path. So you bring a skill set that's very

versatile, and it's based on your many years of clinical expertise. So you know, as physicians,

we've all gone through medical school, we've all gone through training, and most of us have

practiced for a number of years, and that that really leads to the lived experience of caring for

1000s of patients, and startups really need that expertise in a lot of different ways. So first,

let's talk about what the biggest leap would be, and that would be becoming a founder of a

company. So maybe you've got an idea that's been brewing for a while, or you think of a

solution to a problem that you've faced in your practice, or way that you see an opportunity to

improve care delivery. That's how my journey started. And founding a startup is really not for

the faint of heart, but it's also one of the most rewarding ways to create something that could

impact 1000s or even millions of lives. So that's the path I took when I co founded and

launched imagine pediatrics. I quit my job, I moved to a new city, I incubated this idea, and it's

now serving over 25,000 high risk pediatric patients. It's a very bold move, but if you're ready

for a significant change, it is an incredible way to make your Marc and I am already created a

network of other physician founders who are very bold and willing to take risks, and it doesn't

mean you if you want to start something, it doesn't mean you have to quit your job, but at a

certain point, if something really starts taking off, it does often require your full time

commitment. But not everyone wants to build a company from scratch, and not everyone is

really excited about taking that much risk. But another option is to join an existing startup so

you can take a role the Chief Medical Officer or Chief Clinical Officer, and these roles would

really allow you to leverage your clinical expertise without taking on the risks of founding a

company. And these positions are really great for physicians who want a full time role in a

startup but still want to focus on their passion for healthcare. It obviously comes with a lot of

responsibility. If it's an early stage company, you still have to be willing to wear a lot of hats.

And if you're the chief medical officer, you do have to consider that you are you are really

taking on the liability of basically everything clinical that happens at that company. So you

need to make sure that what you're signing on to, you really believe in it, and you believe in

the quality, and you believe in your ability to continue to influence that quality, and that you

trust people who are founding the company and investing in the company so that you can be

the most successful. So what if you want to dip your toes in the water instead of diving in head

first? That's really where consulting and advisory work comes in, and that's what I'm doing now.

I am working with a lot of different early stage companies, because my favorite stage is

working with companies that are really trying to design and build a new product or model of

care, and do what we call de risking a concept to try and make sure that we're really kickingthe tires on the model and really assessing what is needed for this concept or company to

really launch. I think it's really fun, because you get exposure to so many different people and

ideas, and some people may actually be like me and really love talking to people and making

relationships and connections. And if you really, truly want a consulting and advising practice, it

will require a business development pipeline. You will need to work with multiple companies.

And you have to be willing to pitch your services. You have to know what your services are. But

you can work as a consultant, which is more, in my opinion, someone who's actively doing a

project and creating deliverables for someone. You could also be an advisor, where you're not a

decision maker, but your clinical thoughts and opinions are being drawn upon as they build a

product or a service line or something like that. And another service that I provide, that some

people may not know is an option, is to be a fractional chief medical officer. And I call it a

fractional interim chief medical officer, because I know that based on my experience with

imagine, I loved the early stage, the incubation, the launch, the build, the design, and as we

got the whole company up and running and had hundreds of people working there, it really

wasn't my skill set or passion to be what we call an operator, and so I found someone much

better than me at that work to succeed me as CMO, but that's some of the work that I'm doing

now with other companies, is to again, be the interim chief medical officer, and maybe they

don't need all of my time. It's not a full time job, and that's why it's called a fractional role. So

maybe they only need a chief medical officer, you know, point two of the time and and the

interim intention is that I don't plan to operate these companies long term, but I want to get

them launched so I can be the face of the company. I can help them pitch I can help them

create medical groups. I can help them recruit the right doctors. I can help them fundraise and

get contracts. And so that is another option that is really exciting and doesn't require you to be

completely committed to one company, but again, you're taking on liability, and so that

relationship would only work if you feel very, very confident in the people and the product that

you would be representing. This approach actually offers so much flexibility. So you could do

this full time, like I am now, or you can keep your clinical job. You could work part time. You

could explore locums. So I do locums at two different emergency departments, and that allows

me to stay clinical. I actually love seeing patients in the ER still and so I love being able to talk

to parents and still use my clinical still skills and stay credentialed. But I'm also able to take on

exciting projects in the startup world, and it's perfect for physicians who want the best of both

worlds. And there's other options to also take a more passive approach. Maybe you don't want

to go pitch a lot and build a BD pipeline. You could also find roles to be in an advisory

community. So maybe you don't want to look for consulting gigs by actively marketing yourself,

but you're interested in companies that may want your advice, and you can be part of an

advisory group or network that people can come to you to participate in high impact projects,

you can join advisory boards. A lot of companies have a clinical advisory board, and that is very

different than a board of directors. So if you're on a board of directors, you are actually liable

for the company and their performance and what they do, but an advisory board. You're not a

decision maker, you're you're really a trusted advisor to look at things they're working on, and

they will present you with different things and get your opinion. Because a lot of times these

are tech companies, they are not physicians or clinicians, and so they really need that

expertise. Others will be looking for advisors in their early stage development, because they

have an idea. They may not have funding yet, but they're trying to determine if it's worth

launching. So a lot of private equity funds and venture capital funds will incubate a concept and

try and decide, is this something that we want to fund, or is it not going to work, and so they

need a lot of advisors to help suss that up. The other role that I didn't mention is that if you

have an operating medical group that's a startup that actually hires practicing physicians,

those are jobs you can look for too and and I think what's really cool about that is it often allows

you to practice medicine in a different way, maybe using more technology or seeing patients in

a different capacity, but it has all the benefits of working at a startup. So a lot of times, startupsare just a very. Very different culture and environment, and often will be a lot more modern

with their HR policies and benefits, because they really want to attract top talent. So that's

another option for physicians, is to actually look for jobs to practice medicine within a startup.

You have to realize that the risks there are that a lot of these companies aren't really

established, so you still have to be able to be flexible and recognize that roles may change,

things may shift, and that's you know, it may not be as stable and predictable as working in a

traditional environment. But for me, yeah, maybe working in traditional environment was

stable, but the predictability, to me, really corresponded to the inflexibility to change. And so I

love the environment that even if it's a little more risky, if it's a little less there's a little more

unknown, and things change a lot. I find it to be very stimulating. So the beauty of all these

roles is that they really allow you to contribute in a way that aligns with your goals, your

lifestyle and your career stage. So if you're ready to take the leap into a full time startup role,

or you're just curious about what's out there, there's really a place for you in this ecosystem.

And I want to take a minute to talk about why this is such a critical time for physicians to get

involved in startups. And why, again, why I started this podcast? Because I feel so deeply that

there is an important role for physicians and the lack of pathways to really help educate

physicians on how to get into the startup world and how to be successful. Here is what really

inspired me to start this. So the healthcare landscape is transforming at a speed we've never

seen before, and it's being driven by new technologies and care models. And I know I already

talked a little bit about AI, but what is AI really good at right now? It's really good at language

models. So if I want AI to even write a poem for my kids, it can do that. But would you feel

comfortable with chat GPT deciding on diagnostic testing for your patient or maybe a treatment

plan? I don't know about you, but I have asked AI things in the past, where it flat out makes up

an answer. I have asked it for something that has a very specific answer, like a publication or a

grant to reference, and it made up something that sounded really great and very relevant, but

it was totally Baloney, and so I absolutely would not trust AI algorithms at this point to be able

to make any sort of clinical decisions on our patients. But trust me, people are developing it. So

there are so many tools being developed for for any little corner of medicine, any little piece of

something that has been a problem or been costly of funding or time in the past, I guarantee

you, someone is looking at it. And so I personally don't feel comfortable at all with a robot

making decisions about, you know, what sort of antibiotic a kid should get, but AI isn't

inherently good or bad. It all depends on how it's designed and implemented, and so that's

where we as physicians come in, and we have the expertise to see unintended consequences

that others might miss, and we know how to build in the guard rails for safety and quality that

align with real world patient care, and so I find that my role as a consultant or advisor or

fractional CMO is often to infuse safety into a model. So as an ER doctor, I'm constantly thinking

about, what's the worst thing that can happen, what's the worst thing that could happen in this

situation? What's the worst thing that could happen if we saw a patient in this way, or deployed

this technology or created this messaging platform? And you know, you have to be able to

think that way to be able to make sure that it doesn't happen. And I think that you need, not

only, you know, a physician's perspective on these things, but many physicians perspectives,

and that's part of the process of developing a product, is that you have to get a lot of

perspectives and and so you want a lot of people having eyes on the product, to give individual

feedback from a different perspective. Yeah. So I think that AI platforms, whether it's for

insurance prior authorizations trying to optimize that, if it's trying to optimize hospital

workflows, I've a friend who works for an AI company, and they do something called Digital

twinning, where they create a digital twin of an entire hospital, which is kind of hard to

understand, but it's basically mimicking the exact all the digital footprint of a real world

healthcare system, and it runs algorithms to look for ways to operationalize or increase

efficiency, so it will find bottlenecks in the system based on just the digital side of things, and

before they implement solutions for suggested changes that would work better, there's a lot ofreally exciting things to contribute to and and sometimes you know the things we know as

doctors, we don't realize that Other people don't know them, and because we we just think it's

such common knowledge, but it's not. It's it's from your clinical expertise and your your

background as a physician. And so one of the most important early steps that I had in designing

the Imagine clinical model was really describing to my firm how these patients move through

the system, in creating what we call a patient journey and identifying where the barriers are. So

there's a lot of opportunity there with AI companies. Another example is the rise of digital

health platforms, which may seem like old news now that all these things are commonplace

after the pandemic, but many of these tools have the potential to make care more accessible to

patients more efficient, but only if they're designed with the realities of clinical practice in

mind. And too often, we see that technology that may look really innovative on paper actually

creates more problems than it solves because it wasn't built with input from the people who

actually care for patients. Another piece is population health models and care delivery systems.

So there's so many companies that are reshaping about how we think about delivering care to

large groups of people and really focusing on outcomes and preventative measures. So imagine

pediatrics is a population health model for children with medical complexity. On Medicaid,

there's other companies that focus completely on patients with heart failure or patients in rural

settings, or other groups of patients that have specific barriers to accessing health care in a

meaningful way, or maybe have really high cost of care and poor outcomes. And so these

companies need physicians to design these models and help predict what will work and really

address gaps that only we can see. So the reality is that if we don't step up, these solutions will

continue to be developed without us, and when that happens, patients and clinicians are the

ones to suffer. But the good news is that startups are really hungry for physician input. They

really want our perspective, our experience and our ability to connect the dots between

innovation and practicality and safety, and we have a chance now to shape the future of

healthcare in ways that serve patients and physicians. So if you're wondering if there's a place

for you in this space, the answer is absolutely yes. There's a whole spectrum or continuum of

ways you can get involved. And healthcare startups need us more than ever. And the only

question is, what sort of an impact do you want to make? Today we've talked about why

startups need physicians, the different roles you can play, and why now is the time to get

involved. But I'd like to have some practical takeaways from today's episode. So first, I want

you to know you don't have to have all the answers right now, I truly don't think you need an

MBA or another degree. You don't have to be a business or finance expert, and what you need

is curiosity, a willingness to learn and the confidence to know that your clinical expertise is

actually very valuable, and your ability to see the bigger picture, anticipate patient needs and

identify potential risks is exactly what startups are looking for. You may not realize it, but skills

you use every day as a physician, critical thinking, problem solving and decision making under

pressure are actually the same skills that can make you an indispensable part of a startup

team. Second, I want you to start thinking about where you see yourself on the spectrum of

involvement. So are you interested in building something from scratch, or consulting and doing

advisory work, or maybe you're curious about this world, but you don't know where to. Start,

and that's okay, too. Finally, I want to leave you with this thought, the future of healthcare is

being built right now. Startups are leading the charge, and they're looking for people like you,

people who understand patients, who value quality and who are ready to think differently about

what's possible. So if you've ever felt frustrated by the pace of change in traditional healthcare,

this is your chance to be part of something bigger. You can shape the tools, the systems and

the care models that will define the next generation of healthcare. And there's really nothing

more rewarding than seeing your expertise make a very tangible difference. Here's what I want

you to do. If this episode has sparked even a little bit of curiosity, subscribe to this podcast so

you don't miss what's coming next, and please share this with your colleagues who are also

looking for something new. And if you're ready to dive deeper, please check out the resourcesthat we've created for you at startup physicians.com which is our community that's here to

support you on this journey. So thank you so much for joining me, and I can't wait to see you

next week.