Humans in Healthcare: Chapter #5

Hey there!

As always, I’m starting off with gratitude and appreciation for your support as I build Humans in Healthcare together, with you. I’m so thankful for the lovely and heartfelt responses I’ve received following last week’s episode. Allowing myself to be seen is how I can see you, too. 

Quick recap:

Last week I shared part one of my professional story, starting off as a theatre major and ending up in healthcare.

I talked about searching for the experience of inclusion and belonging that I found in the theatre, but not completely finding it in medicine.

I described the misalignment of serving a system while trying to care for people and began questioning if I could find a place to serve in a different way.

I left you with a call to courage: to lean into curiosity over judgement, reach across the clinic aisle to someone who you would consider “them”, and have a conversation.

How did you do? 👀 I’d love for you to reply and share!

And now, part 2 of my professional story

Since many people have told me this newsletter is best read with a cup of coffee or tea in hand, I invite you to take a sip and join me as I take you through my journey into tech.

And just like there are reminders that coffee is hot ⚠️ , a reminder…

I am a truth teller, not a fluff seller. I don’t shy away from talking about hard things. Understandably, it might cause some discomfort. I ask you to reserve judgment and embrace curiosity as I take you through the journey of my story, understanding that my truth might be different than yours. At the end, you may just find that we are more similar than we are different.

Part 2: Leading up to the present

Fast forward nearly 5 years later, I now consider myself a clinician generalist (yes, I like to make up names when others don’t fit 😅 ) who uses my traditional clinical skills in non traditional ways. Forging a non traditional path that doesn’t replicate many, if any, has been rewarding, challenging, and lonely too.

I have a unique generalist background that spans the medical, clinical research, consulting, and digital health/tech industry and have had the privilege of working in and interacting with many different facets and people of the health ecosystem including tech startups, founders, investors, payors, clinicians in medicine and business, communities, patient advocates, and more.

Most of this experience revolves around startups and tech.

And just like in medicine, my experience in tech has been…mixed.

Still trying to recreate the experience of inclusion and belonging that I found in theatre, tech as been an interesting blend of something, but not quite that.

But, there is hope.

The payors and players

My first venture into work beyond clinical medicine was joining a niche primary care transformation consulting business, employed under a local payor system.