Say Yes Before You’re Ready: A Physician's Path from Medicine to Tech with Dr. C.K. Wang

On this episode of Startup Physicians, I sit down with Dr. CK Wang, a medical oncologist who made the leap from clinical practice into the tech world. We talk about his transition from traditional oncology to leading roles at IBM Watson Health and Coda, where he’s working on some of the most exciting applications of AI in healthcare.

CK shares candid reflections on what it really takes to move from the clinic to the boardroom, including the challenges of stepping into unfamiliar territory and the mindset shifts that helped him thrive. We explore how clinical expertise plays a critical role in product development, why more physicians are needed at the table in tech, and how we can bring physician voices into spaces like sales, strategy, and innovation without losing our identity in the process.

If you’ve ever wondered what’s possible beyond clinical medicine or how to bring your medical lens into startups and AI, this conversation is full of insight, clarity, and real-world advice.

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] - Introduction to CK Wang's Journey
[02:37] - Transition from Clinical Practice to Innovation
[05:20] - The Role of Clinicians in Tech
[08:10] - Supporting Sales and Product Development
[11:02] - Embracing a Growth Mindset
[13:27] - Navigating Financial Discussions in Healthcare
[16:08] - The Value of Clinical Knowledge in Business
[18:58] - Conclusion and Future Opportunities

Transcript

Alison Curfman (00:01.144)

Hi everyone, welcome back to Startup Physicians. This is your host, Dr. Alison Curfman, and I'm here with my guest, Dr. C.K. Wang, who is a medical oncologist with a very interesting story. So thank you, C.K., for joining me today.

C.K. Wang (00:16.832)

Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Alison.

Alison Curfman (00:19.616)

Awesome. Well, we were connected by one of my previous podcast guests, Rebecca Miksad. So if anyone hasn't heard her episode, you should scroll back and listen to that one too. But I am very interested in your journey, C.K., because similar to me, it sounds like you were a little bit like plucked out of traditional practice and brought into this world of startups and innovation.

Can you just kind of talk to us a little bit about your early career journey and in more of the traditional sense and what sorts of things you were interested in?

C.K. Wang (00:58.96)

Yeah, absolutely. So I was in full-time oncology practice, in private practice in the North Texas area for a little over 12 years, up until about eight and a half years ago when I started to understand that there's a larger ecosystem out there beyond day-to-day clinical practice. And at that time, looking at the challenges that faced oncology,

which are still present today, which was the amount of workload, the amount of work, as well as the vast amount of new therapies coming onto the market. I had the sense that practicing oncology will become increasingly more complicated, if not unsafe.

unless you're really up to date with all of the new developments, right? And it was at that time that I started developing a desire to want to make an impact in the field from, would say, a larger scale. So outside of those four walls in my clinic. And coincidentally, at that time, I started receiving

numerous outreach from IBM Watson Health that was really confusing to me at that time. And so one would say that where I was in my career and just what had happened in terms of all of this outreach, it just was the right timing for me.

Alison Curfman (02:47.148)

Yeah, I loved your story before we started recording that you started getting emails from IBM Watson Health and you deleted them, correct? And one of the things you said to me, you said, I have no idea how they found me. So what were they looking for?

C.K. Wang (02:59.883)

multiple of them. Yes.

C.K. Wang (03:09.54)

Yeah, they were looking for clinicians. Well, first of all, when I was deleting all of those emails, I didn't really read into what they were looking for. I just assumed IBM, me. Yeah, I'm like IBM, me. they, don't know why junk, right? Until I started reading, looking more into it. And they were looking for oncologists with clinical knowledge to support their, what they were developing, what they had on the market.

Alison Curfman (03:19.66)

You thought I was junk mail.

C.K. Wang (03:38.638)

time, is Watson for Oncology, which is a platform to help clinicians, medical oncologists make treatment decisions.

Alison Curfman (03:49.71)

That's awesome. Yeah, so it's funny because you said, I don't know how they found me. I've been on the other side of that when we were launching my company and we had to hire a lot of clinical talent quickly and had a recruitment firm supporting us. And I definitely remember going to meetings a couple of times a week where they would come with a deck.

C.K. Wang (04:09.753)

Mm-hmm.

Alison Curfman (04:17.282)

of candidates that they found on LinkedIn and creating profiles of this is the type of person we think would be best for this job. You said you did have a profile on LinkedIn at the time, so I would be willing to bet that they probably found you through LinkedIn, or maybe they were.

C.K. Wang (04:32.782)

Yes.

C.K. Wang (04:38.98)

And that would make sense. That would make a lot of sense.

Alison Curfman (04:42.218)

but you had to open the email to actually connect with them. And what was that interview experience like?

C.K. Wang (04:45.22)

I did.

C.K. Wang (04:52.432)

It was the longest series of interviews. I, as I shared with you earlier, when we're talking, is I look back and I can say jokingly that I probably could write the book of what not to say. You we are looking for a brand new opportunity. However, however, I do believe that it was what I said that essentially got me hired.

and I started out with, I don't even think I gave the manager, high, my hiring manager, much of an opportunity to speak, or tell me, you know, or get to know me. I just launched into a high, you know, it's great to talk to you, but I just want to let you understand who I am so that I don't waste your time. Right. And then I started listening, just telling her, you know, I'm, I, I'm a full time clinician. I'm an oncologist.

I know nothing about computers. In fact, I have computer problems all the time. The only thing I probably know how to do is turn on and off my computer.

Alison Curfman (05:57.708)

So you're thinking IBM probably wants someone who's very tech savvy, but what were they looking for?

C.K. Wang (06:03.536)

One would think, right? They were, she, and she said, I totally get it, and that's why I'm talking to you, because we need clinicians, we need oncologists in practice with clinical knowledge, because our customers are clinicians, and we've acknowledged and learned that the most effective way to engage other clinicians is with clinicians.

Alison Curfman (06:29.71)

Absolutely. That is a function I have supported at multiple companies, clients and companies that I've worked for. And it's true. We bring credibility and trustworthiness and obviously would only want to put our names behind something that we trust, but that makes a lot of sense, especially if that's a direct value to them is to reach oncologists. So you left...

C.K. Wang (06:48.88)

Absolutely.

C.K. Wang (06:56.6)

Absolutely.

Alison Curfman (06:58.798)

private practice to go work for IBM Watson Health.

C.K. Wang (07:02.362)

That's right. That's right.

Alison Curfman (07:04.171)

And what sorts of things did you do there?

C.K. Wang (07:08.236)

Yeah, so I was part of so my initial role was was to be part of a global think of it as a what we call it. We call it clinical adoption, but it's more of a client support team. Our clients who are on a global basis, as I stated, you know, these oncology practices where health care systems would license the platform. And my team is responsible for

onboarding them as well as supporting them throughout. And that position, that role expanded with time. And so I traveled frequently around the world, visiting oncology practices, health care systems throughout the world, trying to help them use this new platform, which was AI based that was supposed to help them make treatment decisions.

But very rapidly, because I was one of the few oncologists within Watson Health at that time, I was able to branch out quite rapidly and support our sales team, our marketing team, learn more about AI than any clinician should ever know about AI about eight and a half or nine years ago. So yeah, so that was what I was brought in to do, but then subsequently ended up doing a

Alison Curfman (08:35.392)

One of the things that we've talked about is you were recruited for your clinical knowledge, which is the foundation, which is irreplaceable, which is what brings so much value. But then you're able to pretty quickly stack on a whole lot of other skills that were able to be applied in new ways. And it was the fact that you were a clinician, you were an oncologist, and you could talk to the marketing team and help them figure out like,

C.K. Wang (08:50.767)

Mm-hmm.

Alison Curfman (09:02.978)

don't say this, do say this, whatever sorts of skills that you were developing. And even though a lot of people are like, well, I can't go do that work because I don't have all those skills. You start with your foundational clinical knowledge and experience, and then you gain those other skills along the way. what we have said is that we went through a lot harder things to learn. It's way harder to get through medical school and training and all of that.

clinical knowledge, which is the foundation that you already have, than it is to be like, well, how do I now support sales or something like that?

C.K. Wang (09:40.464)

Right. And actually on that topic of supporting sales, um, this is, uh, this is something that I, that I, I taught my team that I still do share with any clinician who, who, um, who may be hesitant to support sales. And I tell them, let's have a look, think back on your clinic, your practice.

I'm sure there are times, it was easier for me as a medical oncologist because I would say I don't think anyone really volunteers to receive chemotherapy, right? But I'm sure every clinician has been in that situation where you've had to convince the patient to do something that they didn't want to do. Guess what you're doing? You're selling something, right?

Alison Curfman (10:10.477)

Right.

Alison Curfman (10:21.72)

Sales, I know. We have this negative perception about sales because we think about MLMs and people trying to sell you Tupperware and annoying things. when you're trying to sell a vision, it doesn't feel that same way. I never felt weird at all supporting sales for my first company because I knew it was like, my gosh, can you imagine if we

C.K. Wang (10:29.985)

I'm sure.

Alison Curfman (10:49.994)

which is the name of the company you imagine, if we could support children with medical complexity more and the buyer was the Medicaid company, it wasn't even the patient, but it didn't feel like sales. was like, my gosh, we have this amazing vision of how we could change healthcare and just aligning stakeholders around that. And yes, there is contracting involved, but sales is something that

Yeah, we have to realize is just how we expand our reach and help get these more innovative products into the market. And it sounds like you were supporting a very cool like AI tool for oncologists. So you were talking to your own colleagues and being a credible expert that kind of bridges both worlds.

C.K. Wang (11:42.04)

Absolutely. I think that as you know, especially right, if the company and I'm assuming most of the times when companies hire clinicians is that they're in the clinical space, right? Is the fact that it is easier for those who are clinicians to put him or herself in the position of the customer, right? Because they're a clinical entity. And and and and

and think about what the value proposition of this solution to you yourself, because that's exactly what you would tell those potential customers. Yeah. Absolutely.

Alison Curfman (12:23.276)

Right, right, you know, you're one of them. And so when people are like, I don't know what skills I would have or what I would do with startups, it's like, well, how do you do with talking to your colleagues? Like, could you talk to your colleagues about a new product or model or, know, I mean, for you, was a tech platform and you had to believe in it to put your name behind it.

C.K. Wang (12:45.103)

Absolutely. That point is critical, right? And once you believe in it, if you believe in it, and you understand what it's supposed to do, I think this selling process becomes much, much easier.

Alison Curfman (12:49.709)

Yes.

Alison Curfman (13:02.838)

Yes, absolutely. So what other things did you support there?

C.K. Wang (13:07.491)

so I, I, you know, I think one of the more interesting things that I supported was product development. Yeah. Yeah. and so my team, had to develop a product feedback loop from the customers to our product team. And I was the clinical lead for that. and, I, and, and it's, it's fascinating.

Alison Curfman (13:16.46)

I was about to ask about that.

C.K. Wang (13:35.248)

It was a fascinating process because obviously you're receiving complaints and feedback, trying to work through them to understand which ones are real because there are times they're just complaining for the sake of complaining, right? And which ones are truly problems. And because that system was touching patients is understanding and trying to be able to assign, you know,

different levels to these problems in terms of how quickly they need to be resolved. Some things can be very critical, especially if, let's say, the solution is recommending a completely wrong treatment. Don't want that. So thinking through that, and then on the back end, talking to our product and our engineering team.

Alison Curfman (14:31.436)

Mm-hmm.

C.K. Wang (14:32.045)

That was a skill set I had to develop. I've never spoken to folks who are of computer background and product background. so that was something I had to learn. It was a lot of fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it definitely required a different way of communicating.

Alison Curfman (14:57.304)

Definitely different skill set. I actually think that product development, working with product teams and dev teams, it's like one of the most fun things we can do as clinicians is really filter insights and help contribute to the direct build of something new.

C.K. Wang (15:16.161)

Absolutely. And I think it's also the opportunity to, you instead of just doing your day to day to think about, you know, what may be right. What is the future? Exactly. And I think that's a lot of fun. And then also understanding that, you know, it's okay to fail because we most likely will fail, but we learn and we move on. Right. And I think that's, that's something that we don't know. We're not great at that. Exactly.

Alison Curfman (15:26.486)

Yeah, because it doesn't exist yet.

Alison Curfman (15:42.834)

We're not great at that as physicians. I think some of the people in my life who have been in products have taught me a lot about MVP, which is your minimum viable product. And they're like, yeah, we try and get a C plus thing out there to at least get it into the world and start getting feedback. And so I tell physicians, when you're involved in any sort of product development, your role is to make sure that quality and safety and health equity

is like the foundational need. But if you put a product out there that's a C plus in that like the buttons don't look great or maybe it's a little glitchy, like we like to do A plus work as physicians. And so I have seen physicians work with development teams in a not so great structure where the physicians were continually wanting more and more features and more and more this and that and the other, it becomes a

C.K. Wang (16:24.953)

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Alison Curfman (16:41.334)

multimillion dollar project very quickly. And I've seen products that never launched because nobody ever made the MVP.

C.K. Wang (16:50.959)

So yeah, you, you bring a very, very good point because I had to get used to that in the beginning. mean, MVP I'm like, do you really want to put that out? You know, the very first time I, I, I, I realized what MVP stood for. Right. And I'm like, I don't know about that. And, um, and also just even this rule of addressing 80%, right. And perhaps just leaving the 20 % on the side, you know,

There's 80-20 rule and there was a lot of new concepts I had to learn but also get used to because to your point, we as clinicians, we would never do anything just 80 % of the way, right? Yeah. And also at the same time, think the... No, we don't. We don't. We don't. And then I think when we practice, we address one problem and we move on to the next problem.

Alison Curfman (17:34.179)

Right.

Alison Curfman (17:39.438)

But we also don't iterate quickly. We're not very agile. Yeah.

C.K. Wang (17:50.18)

That's not how it works. know, when companies that have products, know, the products are, you know, you're continuously working on it. You could be working on many different things concurrently, right? So those were new challenges that I had to learn how to address and figure out how to work, you know, work differently.

Alison Curfman (18:12.61)

But again, your exposure to that environment and those opportunities allowed you to keep building additional skill sets. And that I think makes you incredibly valuable. Now, not only are you trusted clinician who can talk to clinicians and understand how sales teams work, and now you understand how product teams work and how business development and marketing and all that works. And so all of sudden you become this

sort of multi-tool with the clinical background that can work with, you could work at all sorts of different companies.

C.K. Wang (18:49.973)

Yeah, I would hope so. And I would say, I would say yes, that technically. But you know, but I think it's about, it's about seeking those new avenues of growth, right? Once you're out, I think in the clinical space, we really, very quickly, we just assumed one role many times. And for many clinicians, that is

that is your role until you either leave your, I guess your position or when you quit practicing, right? But I think once you step outside of the clinical space, I would say there's so much opportunity out there, but it all depends on what you are interested in and the effort that you put into it, right? And just be open to opportunities that come

your way. And I think I share with you that a lot of times my instinct when it comes to anything new is to maybe think about saying no, or just saying no. I think learning to say yes, understanding that even though you're not sure exactly what it is,

Alison Curfman (20:04.748)

like deleting the IBM Emo.

C.K. Wang (20:17.923)

that you have the confidence that you can grow into that role or complete that task. I think that is invaluable in any company, in any scenario. And I think that's really when we all grow.

Alison Curfman (20:36.618)

Absolutely. And I think sometimes it can be hard to adopt that growth mindset. But for those of us that want something more, we have to think outside of what we've always done. So we should be pursuing opportunities to do new things, even if they're uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable a very large portion of the time.

C.K. Wang (21:00.335)

Right here.

Alison Curfman (21:04.91)

It sounds like you supported a lot of different functions at IBM Watson Health and hopefully you got a little better at computers while you were there. Not so much, a little bit. And then tell me about your transition to your new company, or I guess it's not very new anymore, but the company you work for now.

C.K. Wang (21:14.051)

A little bit. Just a little bit.

C.K. Wang (21:23.151)

Yes, yes. Yeah. I've been at Coda for six and a half years. Coda is very different than IBM. IBM was huge, multinational global company. Coda, we're small. We're founded by oncologists, AD full-time staff. And I've been here six and a half years. We focus on oncology real world data. And what brought me to Coda was

at that time when I was with Watson Health, I was giving a lot of talks about AI and the foundational principles of AI, which back then is still very similar to what they are today, which is AI needs to be trained on good data. So there's this clinical platform to help clinicians make treatment decisions.

Alison Curfman (22:11.468)

Mm-hmm.

C.K. Wang (22:21.155)

But IBM was in the position, they had the position of not wanting to own clinical data. So of course in my mind, I was struggling with the fact that, okay, well, I'm trying to sell a platform that's clinically based. I'm talking about AI, but I really don't know much about data and how clinical data comes about, right? And I had known about CODA, IBM had a partnership with CODA at that time.

I was lucky. I was made aware of Coda's need for a senior medical director. And I applied and came into Coda. So that's how I made that transition. I'm still here today.

Alison Curfman (23:07.072)

Awesome. And what sorts of function, and now you're the chief medical officer, correct? And so what sorts of functions have you supported within this business over the past six years?

C.K. Wang (23:11.203)

That's right.

C.K. Wang (23:18.851)

Similar to IBM, everything. I think I do a lot more strategy nowadays, of course. But I think one of the great things about being in a small company is you get to learn the business side of a company rather than, think, the end stage or the kind of more, you're right, siloed day to day, right?

Alison Curfman (23:44.152)

The silo.

C.K. Wang (23:48.176)

I think being a small company, I'm exposed to a lot of things. I have my medical team today. We support sales, our product team, engineering team, very similar. But I think what I am exposed to is the financial aspects of a company, right? Fundraising, talking to investors, right? Talking to boards, my board members, managing my board, and then obviously reporting to my CEO.

So I would say very similar to what I was doing, but being involved a lot more in the strategic component of the company as well.

Alison Curfman (24:29.688)

That's amazing. I also think that you're able to infuse that clinical knowledge into all of those areas. And sometimes the financial side of things is what initially intimidates doctors because they don't feel like they have that exposure or experience. I do think this is something you can learn. The other thing about finance is that if you can make

a concept make a lot of money, it will be able to affect a whole lot more patients positively. So I think that even though sometimes as physicians, we shy away from financial stuff because it might make us feel weird, especially in fee for service. as we learn how to create models that can sustain themselves, there are like viable business models.

That actually unlocks the opportunity to actually scale and grow something so that it can affect as many patients as we hope to affect.

C.K. Wang (25:38.224)

Absolutely. I would say that when I started being involved in the financial discussions, fundraising, to your point, Alison, I was very intimidated. I'm talking all of sudden to private equity firms, and there are people who...

are of finance background whom I've never really dealt with in my, well, I dealt with them a little bit, but not to that extent, right? But also convincing them that this is a good investment. And I will say that how I guess who brought me back to my center was one of our good friends who is a CFO. I just randomly, just, you

Alison Curfman (26:10.402)

Mm-hmm.

C.K. Wang (26:27.727)

raises concern about, look, we're going to do fundraising and the pitch and all that. And he's like, hey, look, here's the thing. They know you're a clinician. You're in a clinical company. You know the vision better than anyone. You know the clinical aspects better than anyone. They're not going to ask you about this spreadsheet, the PNL, all that stuff. have your chief financial officer. That's their job. But they will look to you for that.

clinical guidance, and they will see you as a clinical expert and you are the clinical expert. So believe in yourself and speak from a clinical perspective and everything else you'll learn along the way and everything else you have a team that will jump in to support you. And he was absolutely correct. And the incident that I, you know, I guess got that in my head, you know, like this is this is my task. It's just

make things a lot easier.

Alison Curfman (27:28.622)

Mm-hmm, and they're just people. They're just people. I have talked to a lot of important people and they're all just people and a lot of the communication skills that we gain as doctors dealing with, mean, gosh, you're an oncologist. You deal with some of the hardest conversations ever that these finance guys couldn't even imagine having. we have skills that translate and...

C.K. Wang (27:30.723)

They are they are just people. And then, yeah, they're just people.

Alison Curfman (27:56.086)

And then it just struck me as kind of funny while you were talking, I was realizing like, huh, one of the reasons they hired you at both of these different places is because they are like, how do we talk to doctors? Like they're sitting there going like, I don't know how to talk to doctors, but you're like the person they hired to talk to doctors. So it's like, we're all just people with different backgrounds and have things to learn from each other. So.

C.K. Wang (28:19.951)

Absolutely, and no matter what, no matter how much analysis someone has done, they will not know your space better than you. And that is the truth at the end of the day. And so I think once I think we all understand that and accept that, I think it just becomes so much easier.

Alison Curfman (28:44.504)

That's great. I am really excited that we were able to chat today. I loved hearing about your journey. For anyone that wants to reach out to you, is LinkedIn a good way to connect? Absolutely. Okay, so we'll put your LinkedIn into our show notes. It's C.K. Wang, and the company is Coda, C-O-T-A, healthcare.com, correct? Awesome.

C.K. Wang (28:58.883)

Yep, it's perfect.

C.K. Wang (29:10.937)

Correct.

Alison Curfman (29:12.898)

Well, thank you all for listening. I hope this was inspiring to you also that you can use your clinical knowledge as your foundation, as your jumping off point. You can say yes to things. You don't have to delete the emails. Even if you're not great at computers, you could work at a tech company. So we build skills over time. We build networks over time. And these become invaluable as we continue to grow. So we have to approach with a

growth mindset and keep doing uncomfortable things. So thank you so much C.K. for coming on the show today.

C.K. Wang (29:49.187)

Thank you, Alison.