Doctors as Innovators: How Physicians Can Shape Products, Policy, and Public Health with Dr. Tanya Altmann

As physicians, we're uniquely positioned to identify and solve real-world health problems—but how do we translate clinical insights into impactful industry partnerships?

In today's episode, I talk with pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann, who shares how she turned her passion for child health and safety into a dynamic career consulting with companies across the healthcare spectrum. From improving booster seat legislation to addressing coin battery hazards and the infant formula shortage, Tanya reveals her approach to collaboration, innovation, and advocacy.

Episode Highlights:

[4:52] Balancing Medical Practice and Media Engagement  
[7:51] Innovative Solutions and Industry Collaborations  
[17:32] Challenges and Opportunities in Startup Collaborations  
[28:30] Navigating Payment Models and Negotiations  
[32:24] Building a Network of Physicians and Industry Collaborations  

Resources:

Baby and Toddler Basics, 2nd Edition: aap.org/Baby-and-Toddler-Basics-2nd-Edition-Paperback

What to Feed Your Baby: A Pediatrician's Guide to the Eleven Essential Foods to Guarantee Veggie-Loving, No-Fuss, Healthy-Eating Kids: amazon.com/What-Feed-Your-Baby-Healthy-Eating-ebook/dp/B011IT59U2

Website: DrTanya.com

Social Media: @DrTanyaAltman

Checkout our services at StartupPhysicians.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, rate, and leave a review. Don’t forget to share this episode with fellow physicians who might be interested in startups. Together, we can shape the future of healthcare.

You're a physician with the power to do more. What if you could shape the future of healthcare without leaving medicine behind? Join The Startup Physicians Launch Pad, a 6-week course designed to help you break into healthcare innovation—whether you want to consult, advise, or launch your own venture. Spots are limited—register now at alisoncurfmanmd.com/startup-physician-launchpad.

Transcript

Dr Tanya Altmann  0:00  
And that's when I realized, wow, I could probably get one of these car seat safety companies to actually pay me to help them develop the booster seat, to help lobby against the new legislation to keep big kids and boosters. And that was the first company I worked with. And when other companies see you standing up there talking for a company, they're like, Hey, can you help us? We have this problem now that kids are swallowing coin shaped batteries and getting lodged in the esophagus. What do you think we should do? And that led me working with a battery company on bitter coding all the coin batteries, right? So I think the more that you're out there advocating and trying to do your job as a pediatrician and thinking that is how these opportunities come.

Alison Curfman  0:46  
Welcome to StartUp physicians. Please Like and follow our show to join our community of physicians who are re imagining healthcare delivery.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to startup physicians. I'm your host, Alison Kirkman, and I'm here with my friend and colleague, Dr Tanya Altman, who is also a pediatrician, who is really doing some amazing things in the world. And thank you so much for coming on today, Tanya, thank you for having me. Allison. So Tanya and I connected, you know, multiple times in the past couple of weeks. We connected through some mutual colleagues, and then actually got to spend the week last week in Hawaii together at a conference. So I got to know you a lot better and hear a lot about your story, and I'm just really excited to share that with the group today. Thank you. It was such an amazing conference, so inspiring, so relaxing. I feel like you really get to know people in a different way when you're you know with them, with them all day long, not only learning in class, but also hanging out after class in at the pool. Yes, yes, it is. So it's so inspiring to hear so many physicians who have ideas of how to make a difference in the world and ways that they're approaching things differently, which is, of course, what we're talking about today. So I'd love to just get started by having you share a little bit about your journey, maybe even all the way back to decisions you made in your career, in in medical school and residency, and how you've carved this path for yourself, and how that has resulted in you working with industry,

Dr Tanya Altmann  2:20  
definitely. So my story is that I trained at UCLA 25 years ago, and I was, you know, kind of raised by a tiger mom who really insisted that my sister and I go to medical school. So I always love working with kids. I always love doing different types of things, and I think that's why, throughout my journey, I've sort of discovered all these ways to make my job more fun and impactful. And, you know, just really love what I'm doing every day. So when I was a resident at UCLA, this was back before there were any time rules, right? So we could literally live in the hospital for a week and work and then, you know, get a few days off so you could pursue other things you wanted. So during my quote free time, I enrolled in the journalism program at UCLA because I was interested in being a health reporter, and I would run POST call in my scrubs to take classes with all the UCLA students, the young ones who wanted to be entertainment reporters, right? And I like, Did I ever sleep? Like I look back at residency, talk about things you did during residency. You're like, I don't hardly remember that time period, so it sounds like you were very busy. Yeah, I also wrote my first book, then again, to solve the problem. So at UCLA, when you were on your ER rotation, second year, you were the senior resident to the freshmen the first years, and you would carry the mommy calls pager, right? The freshman would carry the mommy calls pager. So when you were the second year on call with them, every time they got a page during the day and at night, they would poke you to wake you up and say, Hey, this mom just called her kids vomiting. What do I tell them? And I felt like I was saying the same thing every two hours, two different residents, so I wrote my first book called mommy calls, which was how you answer the top 100 questions that parents are going to call you with in the middle of the night. Oh, that's awesome. So with the medical audience in mind, yes, and so it was. It was a spiral bound notebook, because, don't forget, we didn't have computers or cell phones or, really, electronic medical records, anything when I was at UCLA, we were still paper charts, so spiral bound book with all the top questions we would get, and we would tally how often we got that question, and I would draft the answers, and it would get handed down from rotation to rotation. And I eventually turned into my first book called mommy calls, which was published by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Oh, that's awesome. Very entrepreneurial of you. You're like, I'm seeing the same problem over and over again. You're recognizing a pattern. You're like, I'm just gonna solve this once Exactly. So in addition to that, I was out doing new segments, because back then, there were no doctors on TV. And so if you were willing to wake up at four in the morning and look decent and say something that.

Intelligent they would put you on. You know, it wasn't. It wasn't like today, where everybody's fighting for that media attention because you didn't get paid for it. So no one else wanted to do it. I also started writing articles and all the local la Parent and Family magazines, because, again, no one wanted to do it. So I remember calling the first magazine and saying, Hey, I see you don't have a pediatrician writing your health column. Can I do that? And they said, well, send us some of your writing. Well, I'd never written anything before, so what I said was, I'd like to write something new for you. Let me throw out a few topics and see what you think. And one of the topics I threw out was, did you know that we're just starting to get flu vaccines to babies. This is the first year we started giving them to six month old, because before it was approved for older kids, but not the infants. And they were like, Whoa, really, we're giving babies flu vaccines. So that was my first article, and it turned to a monthly for five year free column, because, of course, back then, I didn't get paid for anything that I did right to advocate for kids and help. So I was doing all of these free things to help the community. It was my public health service. I called it. And then at the same time, I was spending my vacations going to conferences. So I would be at a national pediatric conference talking to a car seat safety company, and I'd say, you know, what are we going to do when kids outgrow these infant seats? There aren't any laws for keeping big kids in boosters. Have you thought about that? Why don't we make some comfortable booster seats that are safe for kids? And let's try to get the law to cover booster seats for older kids. So that's clinical safety industry and policy all in one Exactly. And that's when I realized, wow, I could probably get one of these car seat safety companies to actually pay me to help them develop the booster seat, to help lobby against the new legislation to keep big kids in boosters and do the advocacy work for parents to know the safety and the importance of keeping your older kids in booster seats. And that was the first company I worked with 25 years ago. And once you start working with companies. And back then, we had what was called ABC show, which has turned into like the the child product safety JPMA, no, sorry, it was JPMA back then. Now it's ABC, juvenile product Manufacturers Association, just like now, you probably go to all the big tech industry expos, which I wanted to go do, but I've never gone to one of the tech shows, even though I've helped some of the companies develop high tech items for kids. And when other companies see you standing up, they're talking for a company, they're like, Hey, can you help us? We have this problem now that kids are swallowing coin shaped batteries and getting lodged in the esophagus. What do you think we should do? And that led me working with a battery company on bitter coding all the coin batteries, right? So I think the more that you're out there advocating and trying to do your job as a pediatrician and thinking that is how these opportunities come, I remember also my favorite stroller at that time, when I was in residency, didn't cover baby's feet, so the baby's feet were getting sunburned. So I wanted strollers to extend their sun blocks.

I couldn't really find strollers to extend their sun blocks, so I helped developed a sun shade that you could attach to any stroller that would help cover the baby's feet. And it was ugly, but it did the job until the stroller company started realizing, oh, you know what, moms do want the feet covered? Let's extend our canopy to cover and protect the baby's feet. Well, I appreciate that, because my four babies that all use strollers, they all have canopies that could cover their feet. So good work. So I feel like most of these opportunities came out of a place of advocacy, but also, as a pediatrician, which we know were the lowest paid of all the positions in the industry, it also helped create another revenue stream for my family and my three kids, and also was so fun for me. Yes, you're you're a highly creative person, and so I could see how that was, was fun for you to be approached by these companies, yes, and it would also lead to doing more news programs and being on some of these fun talk shows to talk about these products. And back then, there weren't really physicians working with child product companies, and I think that kind of dovetails into one of the questions you were asking me earlier, is now every company wants to partner with a physician, right? Because there's so many influencers out there, and they know that when you have a quote, celebrity or expert working with your company, it can really help sales. So I think there's when I do media training and talking to physicians about working with companies, I talk a lot about the difference between an influencer and an expert, and I say over and over again to companies, I am not an influencer. I will not partner with you just to get paid to say.

Say your messages. I really consult. I get involved in new product development, in messaging of products, in outreach to pediatricians, outreach to parents, and in some ways, yes, some of it is doing videos and being on news programs. But I feel like it has to be a deeper connection and a deeper partnership. Because I can't be a sellout, right? I can't have 25 companies that I'm speaking for, you know, all at once. So I really try to have a deeper consulting relationship with every company I work with. Yeah, and, and I think when we've talked before, it's just very clear that you're approaching things from a problem standpoint. You see a lot of problems that you want to solve as a physician, and you started out with a very, you know, simple approach, like, I'm going to write this stuff down, I'm going to put it in a notebook, I'm going to publish the notebook, and other people are going to be able to use it. And then, you know, seeing problems and seeing different ways that people outside of the healthcare industry are trying to address those problems and really lending your skill set in a new and creative way. And have you worked with companies that you felt like really, really valued your expertise as a physician, and then maybe experienced companies that didn't care as much about your clinical knowledge. And like you said, just wanted you to be an influencer. And how did you parse those out? Definitely, you know, it is interesting, because I love the companies where I have really have a seat at the board table, right? And I'm really working on innovation and design and problem solving, but then there are some companies that reach out to me, and the PR team that reaches out to me, and I think I'm going to have a bigger role. But then, as I'm working with them, I realize they really just want that voice piece, and so I try my hardest to be able to really, you know, work on controlling the message and still innovating and problem solving. But sometimes they don't necessarily want as much to hear what I have to say, even though they led me to believe that, yeah, it's kind of sometimes where the where the relationship isn't quite as enjoyable to me and satisfactory, and that might be a company that, at the end of the year, I say, You know what? Yes, you were paying me very well, and I appreciate that, but I wasn't making a difference. And you could hire anybody to just say your words. I really want to get involved at a deeper level, so why don't we have a meeting and kind of re explore our relationship, or, you know, I'm happy to recommend somebody else, because there are pediatricians who just want to make videos on Instagram, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just not me.

Speaker 1  12:37  
Yeah, and I think that there's different needs within a company, at their at their different stages. I recently talked to a friend who does a lot in health tech and interviewed for a chief medical officer position at actually pretty well known tech company, and she felt that they really only wanted a figurehead, like they didn't want someone who was really deeply involved in designing and implementing their clinical models and thinking of new ways that they could serve patients, but they really wanted someone to like, just, you know, go to meetings and write some papers and just be a figurehead. And so that's certainly the flavor of roles for physicians at some companies, I avoid those sorts of roles. I am like you. I'm very purpose driven and very focused on problems that I want to solve. And most physicians that I've seen be very successful in this space, really are approaching it that same way. And you're you're practicing pediatrician, right? So you own your own practice. See patients, see problems, and you're constantly taking in more information about things related to child health that that need a solution exactly. And I feel like that's what makes me, you know, also valuable is that I'm seeing these kids every day. So when COVID started, I was COVID testing in my office every day and really saw how the virus was being transmitted amongst families, what the pattern was of the positive PCR test versus antigen test, so that I could consult with companies on that and help implement school testing. And so I do feel like the seeing kids every day, you know, Does, does really help me. I have to say, when you were talking about your friend, there have been some situations where I have been able to transition that sort of just kind of advisory figurehead role into something a lot more. For example, I as a pediatrician, you know, we're all we're very big into breastfeeding, right? We know that's the best nutrition for babies, and although formula is important and needed, I never really wanted to work with a formula company before. That was just something I had decided because I just didn't want that conflict of interest. And I just thought, you know what, I don't want to do that. But a few companies had been reaching out to me the year before the shortage with new ideas.

Dr Tanya Altmann  15:00  
Is like, hey, why don't we have goat formula in the United States? There really are some nutritional benefits over cow, you know. Why hasn't the FDA ever looked at that? Why don't they allow international formula in the US? So I kind of talking to some companies, still not sure if I was going to work with them. And then the shortage happened, and I thought, this is a problem I have to solve, because I love solving problems, right? And working with the AP, we were doing a lot of messaging on what you can't do, right? You can't make your own infant formula. You can't use toddler formula for infants. But we weren't giving solutions, like, what was the solution? So I was on CNN being interviewed on the infant formula shortage, because that's, you know what I do because I'm on the west coast. So they know that, hey, I'm not doing anything else. At five in the morning, I can get up and be on the news. So they always call me, and they said, If you could solve the infant formula shortage right now, what would you do? And I said, I would encourage the FDA to open our borders and really take a look at international formula, because there are some international formulas that have clean label, high quality ingredients that already fulfill all of the nutritional criteria we have in the infant formula act. And I've talked to these companies, and they are willing to ship their formula tomorrow to the US, and I bet we could partner with them and help get our country out of this shortage situation. And then the next day, I got a call from someone at the FDA, and before I knew it, I was helping these international companies come to the United States. And this turned into me being a medical chief, medical advisor for an Australian infant formula company that I think is really one of the highest quality infant formulas we have in the US. And I put goat into the FDA proposal, and they didn't question it. So now we have in the US. And so sometimes it's just thinking like, Hey, is what we were taught really true? And how can we change that to help benefit children? And so, you know, there we go, and now we have international formulas, and go to infant formulas with a pathway for FDA authorization. That's very interesting. And it sounds like a lot of the opportunities that have come your way, first off, have come to you partially because you're so well known, and you write a lot of books for the AAP, and you do a lot of media things. And so people see you and they're like, Oh, she's the one I should talk to. So it's funny, because when you and I have talked we we've gone in very, very different, different paths to to work with industry. And it sounds like a lot of the companies that have you've worked with have been, you know, more established companies, not necessarily startups. But then I'm interested to hear also about what's kind of caught your eye when, when people have approached you from from the startup space or building something brand new, yeah, and I think that's one reason, just to let all the physicians out there know of why I loved Allison's talk so much at this conference we went to because I've had a lot of ideas, and I have worked with some startups, but we've never really been able to get funding and make that product come to fruition. I realize there is this whole other world there, as you talked about, you know, with VC firms now, where you can actually take your idea or work on a new idea and and get funding to help it become a valuable and useful product. One of the other things I've also admired about what you've been doing is you've really been working within the system. So I always joke I couldn't fix our broken healthcare system. I navigated around it and started a cash pay concierge practice over 10 years ago because I was sick of fighting with insurance and I wanted to get my patients what they need, spend an hour with them, let my family space time and text me and really help solve all these medical issues that I felt like the broken system wasn't handling, and you just dove in and you said, I'm going to change the system. I'm going to create a company and get funding and help all these kids with chronic issues stay out of the ER, and I feel like that's probably a more valuable and useful thing to do than the way I just crafted my own practice, which I'm trying to help other pediatricians, sort of, you know, take what I did and use but sometimes when things are too challenging, I just navigate around them, and that's sort of how I how I've done it. So I love that you sometimes just hit that problem head on and figure out a way to create a business to solve it? Yeah, it sounds like you've been involved in a lot of different businesses, and I know we talked a lot about different ideas that you'd had, or companies that were earlier stage, that you helped provide some guidance to. But even someone as experienced and well known as you I was, I was interested to find that you maybe hadn't, hadn't gone this pathway before, and I'm super excited to have you in in the next course, because I think you're going to have so much really great knowledge to share with people as well. I think that we see problems and we want to fix them, and you're a different type of physician.

Alison Curfman  20:00  
And then the ones that I've had on so far, who I met more in the private equity world and or in the venture world. And it's, it's kind of, you've built this career, you you've tackled problems as they've come to you. You've created your own practice, and then you've had industry coming to you. Have you ever worked with any earlier stage companies?

Dr Tanya Altmann  20:21  
So I have, and as I mentioned, most of them didn't make it. And as you know, probably most, if you look at the statistics, most startups don't make it, and it was usually because we couldn't get the funding. Whether it was a toddler shoe company, I did a lot of the original research with one of the top child shoe companies. We were at the hospital for special surgeries in New York. We actually watched kids walked and saw how sneakers should be developed to decrease stumbles and falls. So when I was done with that, I was hired by a startup Shoe Company, and again, we developed what we thought was going to be a better first walking shoe, but then they just couldn't get the funding. And usually I haven't been involved in those steps. I do more the, you know, the medical part, and so I I'm interested in learning more about how to raise the money and capital. I'm currently working with a new startup, and we help solve the problem of kids, OTC medicine delivery issue, right? A lot of parents don't like the sticky, thick liquids that you need to give the kids to reduce their fevers. A lot of kids don't like the chewables. Hey, there's no gummies on the market for OTC medications for kids. And why is that? Because historically, when you try to put that active ingredient into a gummy, it gets degraded by the high temperatures. So we worked with a manufacturer who figured out how to do this, and we have the patent, and we have the FDA authorization for the child OTC market, and now we are working on developing this new form of OTC medications that are going to have active ingredients that parents know. So I'm getting a little more involved in helping them raise money, and I think it's a white space, and we have that opportunity to take off and probably be bought out by one of the bigger companies. Because when I've worked with some of the bigger companies before on new delivery systems, it hasn't taken off, right? I mean, parents didn't want to choose their own flavor of acetaminophen. I we, I helped work with a big company on developing that product, and it didn't really take off after a year. So it's interesting to see what makes it and what doesn't. There was that one book, what was it called? Why some things take off, or I forget

why it was, but it's, you know, that that's, that's what I don't really know. And I think all my ideas are great, and all the projects I work on are great, and some take off, and some don't, yeah, and that's true. And I think, you know, we all have things that have, I mean, I don't even know that I call qualified them as failures anymore. I think of them as learning experiences, things that I've done that didn't work, and and then you take a different direction. And one of the things that I teach physicians to really understand their own story, their own narrative, their own reason for wanting to do this. And sometimes I encourage people to actually work directly with firms instead of with direct startups, because then there's even more opportunities. So you can provide advisory services for one of their portfolio companies, and then they can come back to you for another one. And so I think that it's a very creative opportunity to be able to, I mean, you're talking about things, anything, any sort of child product, all the way to, like pharmaceuticals. So shoes and medicine are very different. But it sounds like you've had, like, this very broad scope of opportunities to explore. Yeah, the other issue, actually, that I faced a lot is I'm working with a company on a new project, whether it's like and this happened twice. One was research on finding the specific healthy infant gut bacteria that was missing throughout generations and developing it into a product. And the same thing happened when I was working with a high tech Baby Bottle Company on helping them create this high tech baby bottle. And I think this is something that happens with a lot of startups, is they get to a certain point where, and again, this is more business than I know that I'm hoping you can help me understand. Someone comes in to reevaluate the business because they're have a great product, but they're not doing well, and they fire everybody on the team right, and bring in a whole new team to start over. And then sometimes, as the medical consultant, I am left working with a new team, I don't know, and sometimes I'm let go too. And then they bring in another pediatrician for a much lower rate, who wasn't there initially when the development happened. And that's sort of what pains me, because when I get involved with companies, it's my baby, and I'm not someone who wants to eventually sell like I want everybody to use it, and I have to get in that mindset that you're building a business to sell, right? You're doing this to create revenue and money. And that's what's so hard for my brain, because I care so much about each product and the team that I was.

Alison Curfman  25:00  
Working with. And it just pains me when people get let go, which I'm sure is a business decision, but I know that they were the dietician that really helped bring this product to fruition, and without their research, we wouldn't have been able to create this. It's a good point startups are you're really emphasizing that it can be risky. And I think there are many, many stories of startups that have not gone the way they planned, or maybe had to take multiple paths to get there, sometimes multiple leadership teams. That's just a known thing in the industry, which can be very hard to deal with. So I feel your pain there. But I think that as physicians, you know, for people who are just looking to maybe get into the space where they could be more creative or impact children or patients in a different way, starting as more of an advisory role, can be a very comfortable way to enter. I mean, I think you know, you you do develop relationships, and you do develop a connection to the product and to the services that are being developed. But as far as you know, you still have your medical practice. You know, like, even if somebody says, like, hey, we fired everyone that worked here and you're not going to work on our projects anymore either. That's a bummer, because you care about it. But at the same time, like you're a practicing physician, I have a day job. Don't give up.

Dr Tanya Altmann  26:30  
Yes, exactly. And I also talk to people about kind of almost diversifying their portfolio of opportunities. I know you say you work on a number of companies every year. I do also, but I also am constantly making these connections, and kind of have a pipeline of of different opportunities and different types of companies and types of roles that I can play. And I think people can dial that up or down however much they want. I still practice clinically. I'm still, you know, experimenting with the right amount of time I want to spend in the ER versus in companies. We're all kind of trying to figure that out, right? But I think there's so many opportunities for positions that don't involve them, like doing what I did and quitting my job and moving across the country. But there's a lot of lower risk ways to enter this world as well. There are, and there's so many small advisory roles, which may only be a few hours a month and and that's the other thing, is you can also charge as you want. You could charge per hour, you could charge a monthly retainer, depending on how much time you're going to be doing this. And it also depends what what happens in the world, right when you're working with a company you're also looking for any opportunity to help them break out and get their, you know, get out there in the media. I was just reached out to by a food product company that has a product, but with the age scarcity going on now, it might give them that opportunity to launch. And so they were curious my ideas, and so they kind of, you know, reached out to me to brainstorm. And I learned something new from every product I take or every product I don't take, like I learned about supply chain issues when I was working on the infant formula shortage. I learned about when I worked with an infant yogurt company I wanted to get the added sugar out. Who doesn't, right? But then you start tasting and you realize that, hmm, sometimes you can't get it all out of there, right. And there's certain flavors that might need to have one gram because you don't want to use the artificial flavors. And you just, you learn a lot by each one, and also the heartbreak, you know, as I mentioned, of when the founders are forced to step down by their board, you know, just simply for financial changes at the company. And that also, you know, kills me, and there's a lot of emotion because we're P I'm a pediatrician, like, I do what I do because I'm bleeding heart families every day, exactly, yeah, I'm curious, also from your perspective of being a physician and having your own business, but also being focused on media when you've started to work with companies. Have you ever found it a challenge or wish you had more support in trying to determine how to you mentioned different payment models and different ways you can charge for services? Was that hard for you to navigate ever so initially, it was, and my husband is actually an attorney, so I think that sort of helped a little bit. But as he realized the first year when I started consulting with companies, he didn't want to negotiate on my behalf. He's like, I this is crazy. I can't negotiate for you, know, an extra $25 an hour for you, like it just it was, it didn't feel right to him. Now, because I started in a place of I may also want to be a health reporter, and when I finished my residency at UCLA, I was actually offered a job as a full time health reporter in Los Angeles, which I didn't end up taking, because it was going to be full time and I wasn't going to be able to see patients too, and I really.

Realized that I wanted to be a pediatrician and I wanted to be an expert, and I'd rather use my expertise on the news and not be pounding the pavement covering every small, you know, health issue and getting paid like a resident again. But because of that, I had an agent, and so what I did was I actually asked my agent if he would sort of play this role as negotiator for me with the companies I was working with. And this was sort of new in the field 20 to 25 years ago, but since then, he now is an agent just for experts. And every big agency that usually represents actors and actresses also now has a division for experts, because there are so many experts that are doing social media that are consulting with companies. You know, I feel like the companies reach out to me first I bet them, and then I send them to him to negotiate, but once in a while, it's the other way too. And so he's sort of my quote business manager, negotiator. And so it's funny that he's an agent, but he's sort of been the one who does that, and he knows what I need in my contract for indemnification, like I need every company to indemnify me, so every time we read the contract, no indemnification needs to be mutually exclusive, right, and so all these things that I've needed to put in over the years, he has learned, and since then, he represents a whole bunch of doctors in different fields, in different areas, and but I think having That extra person instead of doing it yourself, does help, and I'm happy to give him the 10% because it's definitely worthwhile. And if there's a problem with a company, sometimes companies don't have the money to pay you, right, he then will go after them and come up with a payment plan once they get their next level of funding, or whatever it is. Unless I say, You know what, I love them too much. I'm just out, it's okay. Let's just separate ways, which sometimes happens because, you know, like we said, I'm a bleeding heart, you know, and I feel for everyone, yeah, yeah. That's such an interesting perspective, and such a like, an LA thing to say, like, Oh, my agent.

Speaker 1  31:53  
I obviously have come at this from another perspective, where I went through the PE firm way and then ran the start, went the startup way, and then now I've been out of my own but have definitely banded together with a number of other physicians to say, like, hey, let's all like, figure out, like, what are standards here? How do you handle contracting? What are some of the ways you negotiate different payment models? And I have gained so much value from like, my very small community of other physicians that do this work that has really inspired me to build what I'm building now, which is this vision of a much more robust network of physicians that are actively working with companies, so that when we all are coming together and sharing ideas and opportunities, it's not just my knowledge that I'm sharing with people, But the network itself can have a lot of value with. You know, people put something out there, like, I don't know how to charge for this, or how much should I be charging for this? Because I think that a lot of us struggle with that as physicians, not something we're very well trained in, and we don't know what industry standards are. And so I think that's one of the ways we can all support each other is by really coming together. And I have a very different perspective than anyone else in other specialties, and I know we were at the conference, and I said, like, Who here has an idea of a problem that needs to be solved in healthcare and an idea of how to solve it? And it's like everybody is thinking of a different problem. And as more of us get out there and start working with companies that are really tackling these problems in new ways, I think we will all gain so much collective knowledge to be able to support each other. So that's my vision. I agree. I agree. And also I think you know, you have to sort of also do what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy. So 10 years ago, when I opened the first cash pay concierge pediatric practice, because I had reached out to all the adult companies that were doing it, mdvip and all the others, and then on them, wanted to get into pediatrics, I was like, Okay, I'll just start it on my own. I don't need you guys, right? And then everyone said, Are you going to franchise? And I thought about and I thought, You know what? No, I don't want that headache. I'm happy to give my model to other pediatricians and have them do it, but I don't want to oversee them. I'd rather use my free time consulting for companies and doing media and writing books. So I think also knowing your limits and what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy. And I don't think I would have enjoyed overseeing five different pediatric products practices, because every patient with an issue I feel so personally about, and I want to talk to every specialist and help them solve it that I just realized I don't want to spend my time doing this. So I think that's something else you have to realize, especially as a female physician, what isn't what you aren't going to enjoy doing, and just take that away, even if it can make you money. Say, You know what? Someone else can create a business out of that. And other doctors are doing DPC startup consulting and concierge consulting, and I just send them all to doctors that call me for help, and they're like, I can't believe you're sending them all to take our classes, like you're doing something that I don't want to do. I would rather spend my free time doing something else, and I appreciate it. Yeah, it's such a great way to support each other too, because we're all.

Alison Curfman  35:00  
Trying to make an impact in our own way. And, yeah, I don't really see anyone as competition. I feel like I'm the only one with my brain, and I'm having my own experience in life, and I want other people to have these great experiences too. And collaboration is so important. I mean, when companies reach out to me, I don't have time. I find them another pediatrician that wants to do it. I know I feel like I'm at that point too, where it's like, I can't really take new clients, but I keep having all these opportunities, or I'll have someone come to me and be like, I need someone like you that's OB GYN or reproductive endocrinologist, or, you know something, and I want to build more of a network of people to hand those opportunities to who who know what to do with them, and we'll take them and I support you, because I don't want to run that network, right? So yes, let's have you start your blah blah blah firm, and we will, because I didn't have a name, but I keep calling it blah blah blah, yeah, so

someday it'll have a name, but yeah, no, I'm so excited to have you as part of this upcoming course and community and hear all of your experiences. And I think we're all stronger with all of each other's networks together. So it's very exciting. Well, I really appreciate you sharing your background and all these very interesting paths you've taken, even if some of them have not resulted in a in a product coming to market. You have learned so much from every single one of those. I really appreciate you sharing your story today. Thank you so much for having me on Allison, and I look forward to learning from you and learning more about the VC world and the tech world, and I invite all of you to join me in Allison's next workshop. Oh, thank you.

It's called the startup physicians launch pad. And yes, appreciate anyone who wants to join. So Tanya, if people want to find you or connect with you after this, what's the best way to get in touch with you? So I'm on social media at Dr Tanya Altman, you can reach out to me. I do respond. I'm also in Calabasas pediatrics. I'm the founder of Calabasas pediatrics Wellness Center, and I'm really easy to find online, even just through Google. But I've been doing this for so long that my website is actually Dr tanya.com Dr tanya.com and everyone's like, how did you get that? And I said, well, because I was the only Dr Tanya on TV back when the internet launched, back when the internet launched. Very cool. Well, I appreciate that, and I will, we'll put that in the show notes that people can connect with you after if they'd like to. So thank you everyone for joining and hearing these great stories. I hope this has been inspiring to you to think about new ways that you can apply your clinical knowledge, and I will look forward to talking to you all soon. Thank you for listening to startup positions. Don't forget to like, follow and share you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai