Startup Physicians

Breaking the Mold: How a Practicing Physician Became a Startup Insider with Dr. Gina Clark

• Alison Curfman, M.D. • Season 1 • Episode 26

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In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Gina Clark to explore her unique journey from medicine into venture capital. Gina shares what it’s like to be a physician stepping into the role of a limited partner, how she evaluates and supports early-stage companies, and how her clinical background gives her an edge in startup advising.

We talk candidly about limiting beliefs, career pivots, and what it takes to navigate uncertainty with purpose. If you've ever questioned whether your medical training could transfer into other arenas, this conversation is for you.

What stood out most to me is how Gina reframed her skills as assets in a new domain. Her story is a powerful reminder that physicians bring unmatched critical thinking, pattern recognition, and adaptability, and those are exactly the capabilities startups need.

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] - Introduction to a New Pathway
[01:05] - Gina's Career Journey
[02:46] - Entering the Investment World
[05:06] - Understanding Limited Partnerships
[07:59] - Advisory Roles and Opportunities
[10:07] - The Impact of Diverse Experiences
[13:20] - Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
[16:27] - Navigating Career Turning Points
[19:19] - Embracing Unlimited Possibilities
[22:15] - Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Gina Clark:

Had a fairly straightforward path, but also not completely linear. I've always had a fairly open mind to things that maybe I couldn't have even conceived of, but then come across my path as an opportunity, and pretty much every time I've taken one of those, it's worked out well, and it's just opened a lot of doors that, again, I didn't even know existed to begin with. So yeah, it's been good. It's just brought me a lot more sort of meaning, really different people. It's really enriching. It keeps things fresh, and, I don't know, helps just make you feel like professionally alive.

Alison Curfman:

Welcome to Startup Physicians. Please like and follow our show to join our community of physicians who are reimagining healthcare delivery. Hi everyone, and welcome back to startup physicians. I'm your host, Dr. Alison Curfman, and I am excited to be joined today by Dr. Gina Clark. She is a colleague of mine who I met through a shared network, and I'm excited to share a pathway to working with startups and venture firms that we have not discussed yet on this podcast, which is entering as an investor. And while I am not going to offer investment advice, I wanted to highlight this pathway for some of you, because I think Gina's story is really interesting and will be quite compelling to all of you to hear about how she's been able to get a lot of real world experience with venture and angel funds through a path she decided to take, and how that's led to some advisory roles as well. So Gina, thank you so much for joining me.

Gina Clark:

Thank you for having me. It's good to be here. Awesome.

Alison Curfman:

Well, I would love if you could share with the audience a little bit about kind of the arc of your career and some of the things that you're involved in now. Sure, thank you.

Gina Clark:

So I, I, you know, from sort of high school, I thought I wanted to be a medical doctor. Probably, like a lot of people here. A lot of people might have thought it even earlier, and I would note that I'm from, like, a small town in the Midwest, and I had a concept of what a medical doctor was. I actually didn't have a concept about a lot of other possibilities. So I think, you know, everyone knows what a doctor is, but doesn't necessarily know what an entrepreneur is, or, you know, even what a sort of academic scientist is so then, as time went and I went to college and so forth, I got quite involved with research, which was really new to me. I ended up doing a PhD in England at Oxford in neuroscience. I had taken the MCAT right before I went to England, and, you know, been pre med and all that. And then I came back from England and went to medical school and did a residency in psychiatry. I also have an addiction medicine board certification now. I also did a lot of HIV work along the way, and had an NIH fellowship during med school. Went to Africa. I am in San Francisco, partly because there's San Francisco has been important in the history of HIV, and I've worked with HIV patients here as well. So all said, like, you know, it's like everybody in medicine is quite a you get on a train and you, you ride that train for long ways, but there's, I sort of had some slight detours as well, and maybe had a slightly less linear path than some people, but I think not at all unrelatable, and a

Alison Curfman:

multi continental path, yeah, right, right, right. And I think,

Gina Clark:

I think that, you know, indicative of how things have continued to go for me in terms of, like, some unforeseen, yeah, paths taken, and things that could look like detours, but have actually been just really enriching an important part of the journey.

Alison Curfman:

Yeah? So one of the things that stood out to me when we first started talking was about your involvement with some angel funds and venture funds as a limited partner, and I, I would love to hear kind of your process of of getting to that point.

Gina Clark:

Sure. Yeah. So I've been involved with, well, like a lot of us in medicine, I think I've been at a lot of universities along the way, so I have the opportunity to be connected to a lot of alumni groups. And I, you know, I don't feel like I've been like gung ho about that over the years, but I've, I've enjoyed doing some of that. And I was particularly involved with, like the Oxford alumni world in the Bay Area, and maybe eight or 10 years ago in that world, like there had been happy hours and, you know, dinners and things like that, just really social. And then they some kind of more formalized, professionally oriented things started popping up, like an Oxford entrepreneurs network. And I remember distinctly that the man whom I know, like, reasonably well know, but the man who was making announcements about that at events, I remember thinking, oh, yeah, that's not me. Like, good for them. And I'm in the Bay Area, and there's all sorts of entrepreneurs, and there's a lot of tech people, but I'm a doctor. I'm a practicing physician. I'm happy with. And so I hope they have a great time in their Oxford entrepreneurs network. But, you know, I don't need to be involved, and I'll kind of respectfully bow out, and then over time, like, my kind of, honestly limiting beliefs about that kind of got eroded or chipped away at, or I started, like, thinking, like, is that really not me? Like, in a way, you know, my day job is not being at a startup and being an entrepreneur and a founder, unlike, you know, many of my friends in the bay area who are those things, but I thought, you know, it was apparent to me that they can use input from people like us. And then these, this Oxford Angel fund, and then venture fund came along, and I had the opportunity to invest in those which I, you know, gave a lot of thought to, and then I was like, well, this, I think, makes sense for my portfolio. The managing partners, I have to give them so much credit. They've just been very welcoming, very inclusive and very clear that they absolutely want people from all sorts of industries, and that we have a lot to bring to the funds. So, so, yeah, I got involved, and honestly, it's been, like, some of the highlights of the last few years in like, last five years or so of my life, in terms of kind of the professional growth that I've had, I think

Alison Curfman:

so, tell me a little bit about what that looks like, because some people may be like being a partner in a fund, like, that's out of reach for me. I don't even know what that is. I wouldn't even know what to do, what what sorts of things has that given you exposure to?

Gina Clark:

Yeah, so what it kind of means operationally or in practice, is that, and this was all new to me, but it wasn't hard to learn. And we as MDS are very good learners. You know, I'm a limited partner. So that means I have made an investment in this, this larger kind of group fund where there's, I think, like, 60 or 80 limited partners, and then three or four managing partners who are really the people who kind of call the shots on which companies to invest in in the end, and so forth. But it means I invest some money in, you know, in a non publicly traded asset. So again, it's nice for sort of diversifying my portfolio, but in a modest way, I wouldn't want to get carried away with these kind of alternative investments. But, and then, yeah, and then I'm able to attend, like, pitch days, where we hear three companies at a time over a couple of hours pitch their startups to us, and in this in these funds, they happen to be all startups founded by people who are Oxford alumni. But it's across industries all sorts of things, from, you know, textiles to there's a lot of biomedical startups out there right now, and Allison can tell you more about that, but it's just a big area in startups right now. But other things too, about like wildfire, detection, nutrients, for fish, all sorts of things. And so I listen to these pitches, and then we have the opportunity to provide feedback on the companies to the managing partners. We have the opportunity to attend and participate in the decisions about whether to whether the fund invested in the companies and so forth. So. So, yeah, it's been just really interesting kind of growing experience.

Alison Curfman:

One thing that's cool is that you've gotten real world experience at hearing hundreds of pitches and evaluating companies, and you start to realize that there's a lot of like pattern recognition and that there's a lot of like formulas, that these are the ingredients it takes to build a successful company. Sometimes, when doctors haven't had exposure to this world. They think that they don't know these things, but they don't realize that you're actually like really great critical thinkers and decision makers, and that you're able to really assess things well, even if you're new to it, and I would expect it, having been involved as a partner, and being able to really have all of that exposure, while also having exposure to the managing partners, who I'm sure are happy to share their thoughts and the way they evaluate things. You've learned so much about how companies are built and grow, and now, not only do you have that doctor expertise and clinical expertise, but to be an advisor to a startup. You actually have a lot of startup expertise now, yeah, yeah. And yeah, what I was gonna ask like, what sort of opportunities that's now led to for you?

Gina Clark:

Yeah, yeah. I know it's, it's been great. Um, so I would say that, you know, one thing that has come from it is that I feel a lot more capable of being like in a medical advisor role, or a strategic advisor role for startups, and I'm currently doing that with with one company that has a device to detect fentanyl contamination of substances. Again, have a addiction medicine board certification, and many of us have been touched by by that issue. So. So it's something that, like, in my heart, I really believe in, it's really, like, just great and neat that I have bumped into some people who are tackling that, and that I have this additional way to contribute to, like, an important issue in society beyond the you know, I'm still practicing medicine full time, and that's where the bulk of my time and energy goes, of course, and I still enjoy that one on one, time after time, patient after patient, interaction about these things, but there are additional ways to contribute, and I think many of us feel that and want that and feel a little bit like without contributing in additional ways, things can get a little stale, or it can help, like, lead to more of a burnout situation. So I think like having this sort of broad array of activities, even if you have one main thing that you're doing, which is practicing medicine, it's nice to be able to feel like you're able to make a difference in additional ways. And I think that's something that's like accessible to many physicians. I mean, some it's maybe less likely that physicians will be a startup founder one day. Many of them should, and they should pursue that if they want to. And Allison, you obviously can help them a lot with that. But for people where, like, maybe that's just not in their future, or that's like a bridge too far for them, there's still all these kind of more modest ways to be involved with these things, and that's a little bit of what I represent at this point.

Alison Curfman:

And it it involves a lot of, like, creative work. And do you feel like it's been something both being an advisor and being part of this angel and venture fund? How has that affected kind of, your outlook on, like, your career and what you're involved in, how has that made you feel

Gina Clark:

good? Like it just makes it all better. And again, you know, I think, given my background, you know, I had a fairly straightforward path, but also not completely linear. I've always had a fairly open mind to things that maybe I couldn't have even conceived of but then come across my my path as an opportunity. And like, pretty much every time I've I've taken one of those, it's, it's worked out well, and it's just opened a lot of doors that, again, I didn't even know existed to begin with. Um, so yeah, it's been good. It's just brought me a lot more sort of meaning. And I think, like professional longevity, to just feel like there's all these ways that I can be involved, can contribute, all these different types of people to be, you know, interacting with, because there's the people that we're used to from our clinical teams, like our fellow, you know, practicing physicians and nurses, and in my world, a lot of psychotherapists and medical assistants, receptionists, all the staff at the hospital. Like, that's great, and it's nice having those interdisciplinary teams. But it's also nice interacting with, yeah, these like managing partners, who are just a whole different set of people, and the other like limited partners in these funds, the founder for the fentanyl startup company and so forth, just like really different people. It's really enriching. It keeps things fresh, and I don't know, helps just make you feel like professionally alive, you know,

Alison Curfman:

yeah, and like you're using your skills in new ways. Because I think that, can you tell me a little bit about some of the work you do as an advisor. I know we were talking right before we started recording about how sometimes we as physicians, under recognize how much we know that they don't know that they need to know. Yeah, totally,

Gina Clark:

yeah, yeah. It's interesting with the company that does the fentanyl contamination detection like, they have ideas for ways to use similar technology for other purposes, and they can just run them by me, and I'll be like, yes, no, yes, no. Like, makes sense. Know that that there's no need for that, or that will land and like, No, nobody's gonna want that, you know? And this stuff feels really obvious to me, but they just don't know. They're not clinicians. They don't, they don't have access to, kind of the honestly very protected private world of health care, to have a sense of, like, what matters, especially in something like addiction. You know, addiction, mental health, HIV, like the a lot of the places I spent my time tend to be particularly sensitive areas where, you know, people are, like, patients are not necessarily going to be just forthcoming at dinner parties, talking about their issues on those fronts. So, yeah, physicians representing their

Alison Curfman:

perspective. I mean, it's, it's, it's almost another form of advocacy, right? Yes, exactly,

Gina Clark:

yeah. And you've talked about how, like, you know, the stories of the kids, the moms of you know what people are going through with ER visits and the need for hospitalization or not, and hopefully not, and so that you were motivated to work for that. And again, I, you know, in a way, you represent those voices, and it is a form of advocacy. I agree and you know, and we're in this privileged position. We have the honor of being able. To bear witness to this stuff, and if we can share it, and, yeah, kind of make additional contributions to society. Besides, in addition to the one on one, working with patients in the moment to help them out, yeah, it's just a win for everybody.

Alison Curfman:

What sort of limiting beliefs do you feel like you had to get over,

Gina Clark:

you know, it's really funny, because I often think, Oh, I'm not a person with limiting beliefs. Like, What a ridiculous statement, you know, but, but it's like, you know, I've kind of done what I wanted to do, like, you know, I did a PhD at Oxford, I moved to Africa three times. Like, I I don't feel like I'm a person who has holds herself back. Yeah, yeah, right. And so then it's interesting to be like, Oh, no, wait a minute, I can hold myself back sometimes, like, you know, it's this stuff about, like, oh, Oxford entrepreneur network that's not me. Like, I don't want to, like, bog down their meetings or whatever, because, you know, like, it's, it's for other people. And there's some truth to that. But there's also ways for me to, like, gain entry to some of that stuff. And there's definitely, you know, it's about my attitude and whether I'm interested in these things and want to learn and grow, and you know, to your earlier point, also to like, transfer my existing skills, because that's something I've learned time and time again like this is like critical thinking, whether you know it was my PhD doing MRI analysis and teenagers with schizophrenia, whether it was looking at how to monitor antiretroviral treatment in low resource settings in Africa, like research skills, critical thinking skills like how to how to investigate a problem like that's transferable, the the particular content matters, but it's, you know, there's these transferable critical thinking skills, and the scientific method, in and of itself, is just so transferable. And you use it in daily medical practice. Startups basically use it if you want to, you know, frame it that way. So, so, yeah, so I think, like, you know, there were things about my that I was telling myself about my identity and what matters to me and what's valuable to me that at first got in my way of seeing some of the opportunity and value and some of what goes on in startups and in the tech world, like around me in Silicon Valley and that, you know, I've been in the bay area for over 15 years, and so I'm, I'm kind of surrounded by this stuff. But, yeah, somehow, well, I was in residency for a while, so I was busy, but, um, you know, I wasn't engaging with it, and wasn't taking the opportunity to think about it. To think about it, or how, like, how it might apply to me. And the only, you know, I only lost because of that. And once I was in a position which, you know, I needed to be out of residency and so forth, and I needed to kind of find my footing with my post residency practice. Like, those things are true. But once I was getting toward mid career, I think, yeah, the more I could just, like, set aside any of those limiting beliefs and also recognize that like I hadn't had them in the past. So why adopt them now? You know, I think

Alison Curfman:

that's, yeah, another thing that you've talked about, that I've, I've seen other physicians struggle with, is a turning point in life or in their career that made them wonder if practicing medicine was going to be the right path for them anymore. And the fear that comes along with that to think like, wait, but I can't do anything else like this is this? Is it? This is it. This is what I do. This is all I can do. And trying to reframe that and understand like, Well, what else can I do? Like, if I'm not going to practice? And I know you do practice still, but I think a lot of us sometimes have a turning point in our career, or some people have something that throws them off course, and it can feel like, like a fatal blow,

Gina Clark:

yeah, yeah, no, I hear you, yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I think especially as time goes, you get to mid career, late career, you just have time go by like things are gonna come up cancer. You know, I have so many friends at this point in my life who've had cancer, you know, divorces, deaths of a spouse at a very tragically young age, and you've got some kids and, you know, you gotta think three things out. Or, you know, in professional settings, people think they have their dream job, and then their practice gets bought by another entity, and things change dramatically, and they think, Whoa, like, this isn't what I signed up for, and I'm not okay with it. And I would just, you know, I'm happy to disclose I had my own situation where, some years ago now, I was stalked by a patient, and it made me stop and think, Well, if. Possible, hopefully not, but it's possible that it might not be tenable or safe for me to continue to practice medicine, and it might expose my patients and myself and people around me to harm or danger so and so I think all those kind of things can just be major curveballs. But that's life. Curveballs are going to happen. Tough things are going to happen. They happen to everybody and, and I think, you know, like, for me, it made me think, like, Okay, if God forbid, I can't practice medicine anymore, which hasn't been the case, and, you know, I'm glad to report, and I don't think will be the case, but it was, you know, like you talked about the fear that was the kind of scariest possibility. And so I'm a psychiatrist, like, you know, to just, like, turn and look at the thing that you're fearful of, like, just look at it in the face, like, that disarms it. So just, you know, dealing with that. I thought, okay, even if that's true, that kind of worst case scenario, then what there's got to be other ways I can make a living. I'm a bright, resourceful person. I've actually taken a lot of paths. There's a lot of other things I could do. I could go back to international work, I could go back to research. I could do brand new things. Hey, I'm in the Bay Area. There's, like, you know, there's this whole tech and entrepreneurial world like, you know. So that's some of what

Alison Curfman:

spurred and that was maybe even just like a thought experiment, right? Again, actually go do all these things, but you talked about it as almost like a mental shift, and I feel like it's something that I'm trying so hard to get other doctors to see, the ones who feel stuck that like they just need to, like, pick their head up and look around and realize that there's actually unlimited possibilities. Like there are many, many other things you can be doing. You won't do them well or succeed at them with the wrong mindset. So the mindset is super important, but just knowing that, like, you just rattled off a whole bunch of things. You're like, you know what? I can make living a whole bunch of different ways if I needed to. And I almost feel like everyone should go through that exercise.

Gina Clark:

Yeah, I do leave without the cancer, the stalking, or whatever,

Alison Curfman:

without a crisis. But yeah, like, go take a piece of food right now and be like, and honestly, part of it is that I'm an ER doctor and I'm, I live by like, contingency plans. I'm always, like, making a plan for like, Oh, if this happens, I'm going to do this. If this happens, I'm going to do this. And when it comes to career stuff, it's, it's, it's good to have, like, thoughts and ideas. I think that some people get very stagnant. They think like, Oh, I got this job and I'm going to be here forever. I'm going to be in this job my entire career, and then they, like, Stop questioning and checking if it still fits their needs and goals. Yep.

Gina Clark:

Totally, yeah. I mean, I think a lot about you know what I'm doing today, like minute by minute is different from what I was doing 15 years ago. It's going to be different from 15 years from now, even five years ago and five years from now. I also think about there's like a business book called What Got You Here Won't Get You There. And I don't remember what the book is about, beyond, like the title. And I mean, I think the title is what it's about. And I think that applies in so many ways. And if we, like, give ourselves permission to, like, just recognize that, like, you know, maybe the things that have been serving you well, including, like, the particular job you've been at, like, maybe they, you know, or some like traits that you have, or so forth, maybe they've, yeah, served you well to get you to a place, but maybe they're not what you need to get to the next place, and, like, making room for that in your mindset. And I think that's actually what the book is about. I think I forget. I could be misquoting, but I think he's basically saying, hey, to get to, like, a certain level of professional achievement, you often have to be good in with that content. And you have to, you know, have some kind of domain expertise, basically. But to get to the next level, a lot of times it's about soft skills in relationships and managing people and that sort of thing. So I think that was part of his point, yeah. So, you know, but just, it's just one illustration of, like, there's all sorts of examples of maybe what served you, including maybe a certain sort of tenacity or obsessive attention to detail, for example, like, doctors can be really good at that. Maybe that starts getting in your way after a point, or starts holding you back. And it's about like letting go of some of that, and, you know, in embracing kind of bigger picture stuff or or even being like, hey, you know, there was a chapter in an era of my life that was focused on kind of hustling and bringing things together. But now I want to have more of a, like holistic or spiritual like chapter coming, you know, to try to, like, balance things out. You know, they give me all sorts of things, but just being open to whatever is right.

Alison Curfman:

Well, I think it's been so interesting to hear. About your path, and obviously you have so many different skill sets and are highly accomplished, like most physicians that I talk to and you have shared with us two core things that I think were really important. One is just the pathway to getting startup experience through investing, which is like kind of obvious, but most people don't do that as a physician, and just the amount of experience you got evaluating companies and now being an asset to the companies you advise, and then two breaking out of that mental model of putting yourself in too much of a box as a physician, or letting it hold you back, or thinking that you maybe didn't have that specific skill set, when really what you have is the critical thinking skills to be able to explore all sorts of alternative or different pathways, which is what I hope we're inspiring people to do who are listening to this, because there really are so many pathways available to all of us, and I want to help support any physicians who are interested to to find these pathways. I like to highlight experiences of people like you who have you know, taken, taken a shortcut through you know, this way to do startup work or venture work, and others you know left residency and worked at a consulting firm, or others you know took a path that none of us even knew about, and so I really just appreciate your perspective. Yeah,

Gina Clark:

thank you right back at you. Yeah,

Alison Curfman:

awesome. Well, if you guys enjoyed hearing from Gina, we will put her LinkedIn and her website in the show notes and thank you guys for all listening. See you next

Gina Clark:

time. Thank you.

Alison Curfman:

Thank you for listening to Startup Physicians. Don't forget to like, follow and share.