A Physician’s Leap from ER to Startup: Curiosity, Clarity, and Impact with Dr. Anurag Gupta

On this episode of Startup Physicians, I talk with Dr. Anurag Gupta about his journey from being an emergency physician to founding Tembo Health, a company dedicated to supporting older adults, especially those living with dementia. He shares the role that curiosity has played in his entrepreneurial path, the importance of networking, and his perspective on the ongoing debate around pursuing an MBA. Dr. Gupta also highlights the value of maintaining optionality in career decisions and encourages physicians to step into leadership roles to drive healthcare innovation. 

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] - The Journey of an Entrepreneurial Physician
[09:12] - Navigating Medical and Business Education
[18:28] - The Importance of Networking and Relationships
[27:46] - Building Tembo Health: A Mission-Driven Venture
[31:30] - Advice for Aspiring Physician Entrepreneurs

Transcript

Alison Curfman (00:00)

Nobody can anticipate their full pathway, but if you aren't willing to be curious about all the opportunities that are in front of you, I mean, it would be easy for most people to be like, well, I'm not doing, I can't even consider that. That's not the path I'm on. But I think what sets people apart who are true entrepreneurs is they're willing to be really curious about some of the potential paths in front of them that otherwise may have felt out of reach. to Startup Physicians.

Please like and follow our show to join our community of physicians who are reimagining healthcare delivery. Hi everyone, welcome back to Startup Physicians. This is your host, Dr. Alison Curfman, and I'm here with my colleague, Dr. Anurag Gupta, an emergency medicine physician who is a founder of a company called Tembo Health. Hey, Anurag, thanks for joining me.

Anurag Gupta (00:50)

Hey, good morning, Alison. How's it going?

Alison Curfman (00:52)

Good, good. So Anurag and I first connected when we both were part of a fellowship program through the Nashville Health Care Council. It was a really great opportunity to bring together a lot of different minds from a lot of different aspects of health care as we kind of worked through some of the challenges in the health care system together. And we really

Aligned over the fact that we're both emergency physicians and founders. And I think that his story of the company that he's created and the mission that they're building is very inspiring. So Anya, I would love if you could share with us a little bit about your career journey going from being an emergency physician to a founder.

Anurag Gupta (01:35)

Yeah, happy to share. And just to give a shout out, as you mentioned, we met through the National Healthcare Council Fellowship Program. I have to say that that program is probably one of the best professional experiences I've had. just the fact that you and I have been connected, we're friends, we're on this podcast now. You know, how awesome is that? I just continue to see, you know, growing shoots out of that program. And so, yeah, so happy to give a quick intro to myself, my journey. I'll try to keep it brief.

and feel free to jump in as well. But yeah, I'm an emergency medicine physician by training. I'm also board certified in addiction medicine and clinical informatics. But early on in my career, I kind of started thinking about the big picture. And I think especially during medical school, I was one of those students who's kind of asking a lot of annoying questions. Like if I'm working with like a world class,

surgeon or physician on a rotation and we've like diagnosed a patient and we've prescribed them a treatment plan. You know, this is back in what 2004 through 2008 when was in medical school. But the patient can't receive the treatment for a variety of reasons, right? I was asking those questions back to the physician. Well, how did we help this patient? You know, why are we not able to help them get the right diagnosis?

diagnostic workup, why are we not able to help make sure that they're receiving the treatment that we just prescribed to them? I think it was basically the early, people started talking about socioeconomics and access to healthcare and so forth, is the term I'm blanking on right now. so this is really, was.

Alison Curfman (03:15)

of health.

Anurag Gupta (03:19)

basically asking about social torrents of health before it was a formal term, I think. I remember even writing a paper about a specific case that I saw where I was working with quote unquote a world-class colorectal cancer surgeon. And we had a patient with a relapse and we had prescribed all these treatment protocols but their insurance wasn't approving it. And so I basically challenged the physician, the surgeon, like, you tell me that, I hear you're a world-class physician.

world renowned, but your patient is not receiving the treatment that you prescribed. Like you failed in my opinion, as a student, we collectively have failed this patient. And so anyways, asking a lot of these types of questions trying to understand like the larger picture of healthcare, how is healthcare delivered and so forth kind of drove me towards entrepreneurship to be honest, I was trying to like solve bigger and larger problems. I had a very cool opportunity to join with some friends and launch a startup during medical school.

which is kind of my first taste of it. And it was just so fun. it was in the addiction medicine space, using some novel kind of therapeutics. So we combined traditional psychotherapy with laser acupuncture. So tons of data out there on the benefits of acupuncture, it's well documented and so forth. I think in the American culture, folks are generally afraid of needles.

afraid of needles as well to some degree. And so we found that there was this new technology. It's a blue light laser. It's a cold light laser basically. And you can apply it to the same parts of the body as where you would traditionally do needle acupuncture. And you hold a blue light laser there for certain periods of time in the time frame of seconds. And the energy from that blue light laser kind of penetrate past the skin, a couple of millimeters, and have a very similar release in terms of the neurotransmitters that you would achieve.

from needle acupuncture. And so we took kind of that concept, applied it with lasers, combining it with traditional psychotherapy. And we were finding really phenomenal outcomes for things like, our main focus was smoking cessation. Again, I went to medical school in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. And so in our backyard were a lot of the big auto companies and they're on the full hook for healthcare.

and a lot of tobacco use in that pop work force and population. So that's kind of the population we were targeting in particular. And it was just an incredible journey. We had to go through FDA approvals, figure out how to do marketing, how to do enterprise contracting with big companies. And it was awesome. And just learned so much through that journey.

my first kind of like real introduction to the business world.

Alison Curfman (06:04)

you in any sort of like mentorship program or accelerator or how were you getting the resources you needed to navigate such a new world?

Anurag Gupta (06:13)

Yeah, no, no formal programs or anything is really just partnering up with another friend from the business school. So I went to Michigan for undergrad and then stayed out for medical school and then had a lot of my friends from undergrad who pursued a degree in business as an undergrad, others who had come back to Michigan either for law school or graduate school and the business school and so forth. And so it really just leveraging my network and just a passion to of like create something, create something of value to really help.

know, patients and people who otherwise don't have great access or resources. And so a lot of it was trial by fire, to be honest. We were 100 % bootstrapped. And once we kind of got things off the ground from the FDA perspective, which did take several months, we cashflow positive, think within like six months. That's amazing. Yeah, small scale, small scale, but you know, was,

Alison Curfman (07:01)

So

exciting. Yeah, think that, you know, and this is one of the things we talked about before we started recording is that like, there's a lot of times that you like, you describe this whole longer process of like, you came up with a product, you figured it out, you studied it, you got approval, all this stuff, and then you ended up getting to a company that's cash flow positive, like that's a huge journey. And on a founder's journey, it's really like, you have a vision, and then you figure out what the next step is, like you don't know how to get a patent, you don't know how to get FDA approval, you can go

Ask people you said leaning on your network being like, well, who do I know that knows someone that's gotten FDA approval for something? And there's a process for just about everything. And one of the things I've found by being in this world is that people really want to help each other. They really want to have good relationships, good connections, and contribute value to other people's journeys, whether it helps them or not. So you could reach out to someone and be like, hey, I've got this idea.

I'm trying to get FDA approval. I don't know anything about this process. And if they know someone that does, they probably really want to connect to you. So I find it very positive in that way.

Anurag Gupta (08:09)

I completely agree with you. And I think that people are too shy. You have to ask for help. I don't know when it was ingrained in me, but at some point in my childhood, I was taught the common lesson that if you don't ask for something, you're never going to get it. And what I found in particular in the business world is if you ask for help at the right time, with the right information, the right context, and so forth, if you're prepared to receive someone's

feedback input, support, which I think is a very important delineation. I think there's two people out there who do go out and ask for help, but they're not prepared. And then that kind of creates a negative feedback loop. But if you've done the work and you're prepared and you asked for earnest help, people are eager to provide it. And I don't think I could have gotten to any of the achievements I've had without the support and help of hundreds of people.

throughout my journey. And so yeah, so I think in terms of, you one of the first lessons words entrepreneurship that I learned through that kind of social during medical school was learning how to ask for help and then being ready to receive it as well.

Alison Curfman (09:12)

That's such a great point. So did you go on with that business or you said you were in medical school? So what did you do when you kind of transitioned to residency? Were you still involved?

Anurag Gupta (09:23)

Yeah, well, between that experience and many of the other big picture questions I was asking during medical school, I decided to do an MBA. And so, and through my research, what I realized was that it really is important to complete a full two-year MBA for me, because I really wanted to learn business. While Michigan offered a joint MBA program over five years, the downside that I found through that program was that I would only be in business school for one year.

I would have no summer internships. And from talking to previous alumni who went through that program, the majority of them didn't really seem to have any significant connections to the business school classmates. And I wanted to go all in. So I pursued a two year full-time MBA and that just opened up so many more opportunities to me. I really learned the vocabulary of the business world. I think one of the coolest things was just

In my career, being in science and biology and medicine, you even learn how to problem solve from that perspective as a clinician, taking evidence-based protocols and pathways and diagnostic workups and so forth. But business applied a completely different framework of problem solving. And I think it requires a lot more creativity.

used to be, I think, much more humble compared to medicine, I think. And that was just an incredible experience to have. And so we ran that startup for, I think it was roughly three or four years. And then as kind of I was graduating and leaving and others were leaving and graduating as well, we were also hitting the downside in the economy of 2008, 2009. And this was a cash based business. And so that was also becoming much more difficult in that environment. And so ultimately,

It was a fairly easy decision to kind of shut down that company for those two major reasons. Basically, all of us were leaving Ann Arbor and the economy wasn't doing so great.

Alison Curfman (11:16)

Well, it sounds like it was an incredible experience. it sounds like your pathway to really pursue a full on MBA at that point in your career added so much value and perspective that probably really led to a lot of future success. I do tell doctors that I don't think an MBA is required to get involved in industry. think sometimes we feel like as doctors who go through

medical school and residency and fellowship and internships and all of this stuff that we all need to like do another formal program to even get started in something. And while I do think it can be like a really great pathway for people to develop skills into like it sounds like you did it full out, you had the full two years, you probably developed a ton of connections in business school. But I don't want people to think that they can't even start

or get involved in industry at all without an MBA? Because sometimes I tell people, there's a lot of things you can learn through experience and through getting involved. so I think different pathways are right for different people. But I don't know, what do you think about that? Do you think that it's a requirement to have an MBA? Or do you think that it was just a great pathway for you and that there's other ways you can get some of that knowledge too?

Anurag Gupta (12:33)

Yeah, so it's a great question. And generally, I agree with a lot of things that you just said. I've probably counseled a couple hundred medical students or physicians over the years who've come to me seeking advice on this very particular question. Should I do an MBA or should I not do an MBA? My general advice to the majority of folks in medical space about an MBA is not to pursue an MBA, actually. I think you're

you have to really spend a lot of time to understand what you want in your journey, right? Where do you wanna be in 10 years, 20 years, and 30 years? And is an MBA going to help you get there or not? And I think for the majority of folks that have come to me for this question, as I asked them these questions, it's not clear to me that they need an MBA. I think, like you said, you can just get on the job, experience, and so forth, and achieve so many other goals because

While an MBA is a really fantastic opportunity, it's two years of your life. That's a huge commitment to invest. It's really expensive as well. Again, I'm super biased and I have like, you know, I'm by my life experiences and what I think and know. So I always like to tell people when they ask me for advice, I'm an N of one, please go talk to 10 other people. Probably you'll get better, smarter advice from others. But in my opinion, again, this is from my experiences, if you're do an MBA, it's really important.

to do a full-time MBA, I think doing an evening, weekend, part-time MBA, you're missing out on the number one value of the MBA, which is the network, right? Like I now have, and I work hard to maintain my network, as you've probably seen yourself, as I coordinate follow-up dinners and so forth in Nashville when I'm in town. But I'm now still connected to over a hundred of my classmates from my MBA program. These are people that I could literally pick up the phone today.

and ask them for help on something and they would respond. They'd be like, yes.

Alison Curfman (14:23)

This is the other thing that I really talk to people about, whether it's through an MBA or through other opportunities to expand your network, you can't function in this space without investing in your relationships. And for me, a lot of it came from both working at this firm and doing so much outreach for my first company and the Nashville Healthcare Council. I could call anyone in our class from the Nashville Healthcare Council and

You're like, hey, I need to, and we do it all the time. Like people call me all the time. I call others all the time. And the relationships are so important, but you have to grow your network in the direction of, you know, your desires. So some people are like, is there any way like I could just use your network? Like, can you open your network up to me? And it's like, well, you don't want my network. Like, you don't, you don't do the same thing as me. And so it is an investment, but it is probably the most valuable thing you have because

You can, something could happen at your company tomorrow and like something could end what you've built and you could build something else because of the skills you have, the relationships you have, like it is a longevity thing for your career.

Anurag Gupta (15:32)

Yeah, I think so. you know, there's so much additional value in the MBA, of course. You're learning a lot of material. You're learning how to network. You're learning how to do case interviews and so forth. But I do think the number one benefit is that network. And that's where I tell you, like, if you're not looking to go all in on a path towards business, frankly, you can learn the material from an MBA.

on Wikipedia, Khan Academy, don't, know, chat GPT now you can ask chat GPT to give you a tutorial on whatever MBA coursework you want. And I'm not trying to sell business school short or anything in any way. Cause I think that they create tremendous and awesome value. And again, if you're, you're trying to really apply those skills, being in that classroom setting in business, especially in a top 10 MBA program where you are having challenging conversations.

and debates, that's a hard thing to replace. Again, but if you're just looking to kind of get experience, be more involved and so forth, I highly recommend folks just go find an opportunity to go do that, whether it's on the consulting side, joining a startup.

being an advisor or a consultant to some other healthcare company or even your health system, wherever you're working, those are all great opportunities to start building that experience, start learning the vocabulary, start learning to think like a business person. But if you're still looking to stay primarily clinical and still maintain a lot of that time, I do think it's a challenging thing to kind of become an expert in two different arenas without dedicating real.

I'm an effort. So that's what I like to ask that question. Where are going to be in 20 years? If your goal is to be chair of your department, you absolutely do not need an MBA, in my opinion.

Alison Curfman (17:22)

Yeah, agree with you. So you started and wrapped up this startup in medical school, you went to MBA training, and then did you pick up your medical training again after that? What did you do?

Anurag Gupta (17:34)

Yeah, I kind of created my own MD MBA program. So I graduated from both in 2009. And then at that time, I was faced with some really difficult decisions. I was initially planning to go into ENT. I had spent five or six years doing research in the department of ENT at Michigan, published several papers. And it was an early match, which I had applied for. then, you know,

Coming out of business school, I had job offers from places like McKinsey, BCG, and others. And it was really difficult to kind of figure out where I wanted to be in 10 years, 20 years at that junction of time. And I think one of the coolest things that I got to do through that process was I talked to about 70-ish MD, MBAs that I could find out in the world. And this is the early days. I was having these conversations in kind of 2008 timeframe.

And weren't that many of us out there at the time. And my biggest insight from those conversations was every person I spoke with basically recommended I took their pathway. So if I talked to someone who left after medical school and they had a really great, know, they're having a great career in med tech or pharma or wherever startups, finance, they were like, you should do what I did. Like, there's no need to do any more training. I spoke with someone who did a year of internship,

and they're in whatever career they're in now, they would say the same thing, look at me, I'm super happy and super successful, all the way down to someone who, I remember talking to a couple of folks who had practiced medicine for 20, 25 years, professors, and then took the leap and went into some fashion of business full-time. And they're like, I could never have been successful in my role had I not had those 20 years of clinical experience and residency and fellowship and professorhood and all of those things. And so my takeaway from all those conversations was,

I basically got the chance to speak with 75 really smart, really hardworking people who were going to be successful in life, no matter what path they took. There is no right answer for, know, if I found the medical, if I'm the medical student space in the medical school path and I want to go into business, when do I do it? Do I leave during medical school, after medical school, after engineer, after residency, after fellowship? There's no right or wrong answer.

And so I generally have taken all of that plus my own personal experiences. I advise everyone do what's gonna make you happy today, tomorrow and start thinking about that 10 year, 20 or 30 year horizon. Cause if you don't do that work now it's really difficult to make decisions today because ideally you're making decisions for today and tomorrow that will help lead you down the path to where you want to be in 20 or 30 years. And if you're not able to think about that then.

It's hard for me to give you advice.

Alison Curfman (20:22)

Yeah, absolutely. That's such great advice. And I think that people are biased on their own pathways. And I try and highlight as many pathways as possible to kind of demonstrate to people like, there are so many ways you could pivot your career any, any point anytime. So yeah, no, that's really great advice. Just obviously, take the N of one and try and make it an N of 10 or 20 and see what resonates with you. So what did you did you end up

going and doing residency. What did you do after that?

Anurag Gupta (20:53)

Yeah, so really painful decision. At the time, I was super excited about my offer from Boston Consulting Group and it was my dream job. And I had told family and friends that if I got the BCG offer, I was gonna take it and not do residency. But then as I was having all these conversations and just having a lot of deep introspection as well, I felt like I did want to become a real doctor. I did want to

finished my residency and I'd spent all this time and effort, which one could argue is a sunk cost in terms of medical school. But I felt like I still wanted to do it. And I felt like ENT was no longer a reasonable path because ENT was gonna be a seven year residency program. And I was really passionate about doing my microvascular surgery. So was an additional two years of fellowship. So it just didn't compute anymore to do nine years of training in the face of this BCG offer.

I ultimately decided to do emergency medicine. So I pulled out of the ENT match and reapplied for ER quite late, kind of late into the match process. So again, I was kind of wrangling with so many of these internal conversations. And I don't know if it was the right path or not, but for me, like I honestly, I picked ER from a very strategic perspective.

You can find three year ER residency, so I could kind of get in and out as soon as possible. It's shift work. So in the future, I could work a shift a month or I could work full-time, which is three or four shifts a week. I could easily scale up and down. I could be working in New York, find a really cool opportunity on the business side in San Francisco if I wanted to, and I could literally move at the drop of a hat from New York to San Francisco to anywhere else in the country. Because again, it's shift work.

then I felt like ER was really great because I would learn the breath of medicine, you know, as an ER physician, I'm trained to deal with.

Pediatrics, Psych, Cardiac, yeah.

Alison Curfman (22:44)

All the specialties and all the levels of health. You're talking to the ICU, you're talking to the inpatient, you're talking to rural ERs, you're talking to outpatient facilities. It's kind of like, kind of have a bird's eye view of like the whole healthcare system.

Anurag Gupta (22:58)

Yeah, yeah. so, so I, so ultimately I kind of chose to go into emergency medicine for various strategic reasons. And I was already planning to go back into business after my ER residency. And so I had, I had also successfully convinced BCG to defer my offer. I told them, you know, let's talk in a year, let me at least do my intern year, but you know, chance I want to finish the three year residency program as well, which, know, I came to New York and Mount Sinai to complete that. And, um,

really surprising to me, I just fell in love with medicine during residency. I thought residency was a hundred times more fun and challenging and just all the adjectives compared to medical school. Ultimately, I didn't love medical school. Again, I was basically running a company on the side and doing a bunch of other things as well, but I truly loved my ER residency.

It was just an amazing experience. And so I almost thought about staying in medicine and I started applying to like fellowships. I wanted to go into like critical care and trauma. And so I started applying to those fellowships and so forth. so much longer story, but I ended up obviously going back into tech and startups. But, know, because I had completed my ER residency, I was able to continue my clinical work where I tried to maintain like one.

at least one shift a week in the trauma centers throughout my career. Sometimes I dropped down to like every other week depending on balancing life and so forth. But for me, it was a great path. It's not something I recommend. I think trying to straddle two careers is insane. I don't advise it to most people. Thankfully I have an incredibly supportive wife and family who've allowed me

know, the latitude to kind of pursue a lot of different things.

Alison Curfman (24:49)

I like just reflecting on some of the things that you've said about your pathway, a quality that comes out very strongly is your willingness to be curious and to consider a lot of different things at every like pivot point. Like, man, want to, I, do I do business school or do I keep going with my training? Like let's consider the options, let's get a lot of feedback, let's try and figure it out and then make a choice. And then same with, do I go to BCG or do I do residency and do I do ENT or do I do ER?

You know, all of those things, like nobody can anticipate their full pathway. But if you aren't willing to be curious about all the opportunities that are in front of you, I mean, it would be easy for most people to be like, well, I'm not doing, I can't even consider that. That's not the path I'm on. But I think what sets people apart who are true entrepreneurs is they're willing to be really curious about some of the potential paths in front of them that otherwise may have felt out of reach.

Anurag Gupta (25:44)

Yeah, I think I've been very privileged to be able to learn so much through academic institutions, through real life experiences and so forth. despite being an entrepreneur and someone who's generally associated with high risk.

I think I'm actually kind of conservative. I'm like the king of optionality. I've kept like every option available to me from staying in medicine, going into business, know, continually delaying my BCG. I ended up delaying the BCG offer for like six or seven years. I did end up doing fellowship, but in informatics, which kind

Alison Curfman (26:17)

And

then you went to work for BCG. went.

Anurag Gupta (26:20)

No, I kept delaying them. got a really cool. So I did my Informatics Fellowship at Harvard and MIT and Boston for two years, launched another startup while I was there, was also on faculty in the Trauma Center at Brigham. And then I talked to BCG again about going after fellowship, but ultimately ended up taking a really cool offer as the head of innovation for Northwell Health in New York City. And that was an amazing experience because I really learned how to implement.

know, clinical transformation at scale across such a large health system like Northwell. And it was after that that I ultimately ended up going back to DCG. So it was about seven years later after that individual offer. So again, I'm the king of optionality.

Alison Curfman (27:07)

You've gotten a lot of experience in your career. And I'd love to spend the last couple minutes hearing about your most recent venture and what you've built.

Anurag Gupta (27:17)

Yeah, so currently working on Tembo Health, this is so personal and I'm so passionate about it. So Tembo is Swahili for elephants and elephants are one of the few animals on the planet that care for their elders in nature. And so as we were getting Tembo off the ground, that just really resonated with me along with our mission. And at Tembo, we started off with a really simple idea of how do we support older adults to stay healthy, happy and at home?

You know, my wake up for this was experience with my grandfather. I grew up in rural Michigan. My grandfather, you know, moved in with us when I was in kindergarten. He's kind of my best friend growing up. We were very close. And as he was aging into his later seventies and eighties, still living at home with my parents, my parents by default became his primary caregivers, caretakers, health care coordinators and everything. And I saw them.

really managed my grandfather's healthcare needs. I thought to a really great level, my grandfather picked up a lot of chronic conditions, two open heart surgeries, cardiac rehab, and my parents were able to really support him through all of that and return very close to baseline functional status. In the last couple of years of my grandfather's life, know, came down with dementia pretty hard and fast, and I saw everything break. And I come from a family of doctors.

So my dad's a doc, both my sisters are docs. I'm now the black sheep who stopped practicing medicine a few years ago. But my family of physicians struggled in supporting my grandfather. And to me, that was a huge wake up call to like, wow, this is a massive problem. If we can't figure this out, my family of doctors, how's everyone else in America dealing with this? And so that was kind of my impetus to launch Tempo. And today, we're supporting patients across the country in all 50 states. We've really kind of...

honed in on our focus in dementia in particular. We're now a virtual wraparound care model for dementia. It's a full stack solution. So we have our own medical practice with expert physicians, care navigators, we have our own technology. And we like to say that we're supporting the patient with dementia, but really supporting their family, their caregivers, and their primary care physician through the journey of dementia from pre-diagnosis through the end of life.

And we're there to, know, families tell us it's like having a wedding planner, but for the journey of dementia. Cause again, it's just, if you haven't gone through it, it's hard to understand how complex and difficult it is to manage a loved one with dementia. And I think unfortunately our healthcare system just hasn't created the right level of resources to support patients and families. And so that's what we're trying to fill the gap.

Alison Curfman (29:53)

That's incredible. I love hearing your excitement and mission around it. I think that you are a really great example for people that are listening of like what it feels like to interact with founders who really, really care about what they're building. And it brings a ton of energy and inspiration. I always felt a lot of camaraderie with you because while you were building this, you know, wraparound model for older adults, I feel like there's so much corollary to what I've worked on in complex beads.

different population, same sort of needs. And so I think that, you know, when you're building something that you're so, you know, driven about the mission, that's what really keeps you going. So for anyone that wants to check out On Your Eggs, most Wreath Inventor, it's Tembo Health, it's P-E-M-B-O dot health. I think it's an incredible company. I've loved seeing your success in growing this.

Thank you so much for sharing all about your journey. There's been so many really interesting things you've brought up. Do you have any last thoughts you'd like to share with physicians that are listening who are maybe just curious about the startup world or interested in getting involved?

Anurag Gupta (31:01)

Yeah, I think so I can share some closing thoughts there and then I'll also put a little plug for Tembo as well. I think at end of the day, being a physician is just such an incredible opportunity. I still think so, when you have a career, we get to help people. It's truly amazing. And I know there's a lot of challenges in the healthcare system. And I'd love to see more and more physicians. I mean, really all clinicians, it's not just doctors, nurses, techs, rehab.

folks are having so forth, step up and take a leadership role. I often hear of clinicians complaining, like, oh, healthcare is run by administrators, healthcare is run by insurance companies and so forth. We need more doctors at the frontline making those decisions, being in the room, being in the conversations. So if this is something that you're interested in, passionate about, please just start, just join a committee, join a meeting, join.

see what you can do to take some action. You will learn, you'll have fun. And, you know, ultimately, I think the biggest passion that I've had in my journey is I feel like as a physician, you know, I get to help one patient at a time, but, you know, on the technology side or on the business side, I get to help populations of patients. And that larger, greater impact is just, that's what drives me every day to work so hard. And so that's my advice.

And just to give a plug on Tempo, one thing that I'd love to just share is that Tempo is participating in a Medicare innovation program called Guide. And what's really amazing about that is that our services are now available at zero cost. If you have a patient or a loved one dealing with dementia, you can check out our website. We have next day availability for appointments, but for any patient with dementia or even suspected dementia, because again, we can diagnose.

patients with dementia if they don't have a formal diagnosis. Patient meets the guide criteria, which is having Medicare, having dementia. We can provide you with all of our services at zero cost. There's no copay, there's no deductible. It's a really amazing opportunity. And if you're watching this and we can help anyone that you know, please don't hesitate to reach out to our website or connect with me on LinkedIn. We love partnering with health systems, provider groups.

community organizations, nonprofits, to really, you know, ultimately expand our mission to help as many patients and families as possible.

Alison Curfman (33:24)

That's incredible. I really love hearing how you've been able to take a problem that seems impossible to address. I mean, what you just described, you made it sound so easy, right? Like you made a new model of care that did not used to exist and you made it so accessible. So congratulations on all your success. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time today. And yes, if anyone wants to connect.

With Anurag, you can connect with him on LinkedIn or check out tembo.health. But yes, thanks Anurag. It was great to catch up with you.

Anurag Gupta (33:57)

I was gonna see you,  Have a good day.

Alison Curfman (33:59)

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