Non-traditional pathways, innovation and software

Non-traditional pathways, innovation and software

Nov 16, 2022 0
digital health,onthepods

In this podcast, Eloise Sobels talks to Dr Josh Case about the intersection of medicine and software, but more broadly about the benefits of walking a different path to those conventionally bestowed upon junior doctors.

 

Summary Writer:  Jenny Wei

Script Writer:  Eloise Sobels

Editor:  Eloise Sobels

Interviewee:  Josh Case

Interviewer:  Eloise Sobels

 

About Dr Josh Case

Along with being a doctor, Josh is also a software developer who hopes to empower other doctors and medical students to build new software, even those without a background in technology. Josh is passionate about making the world’s hospitals safer and more efficient, and teaching clinicians how to code.

 

About Dr Eloise Sobels

Eloise is a Junior Doctors based in New South Wales, Australia.  Before embarking on her Medical degree, she completed an undergraduate in Medical Science (Hons) from Flinders University and worked in a Clinical Pathology Laboratory testing and reporting on blood results. Ellie has a passion for team-based medical care and is currently working on research into Multidisciplinary Team based care for End-Stage-Kidney-Disease patients. Ellie is an avid dog lover and enjoys any beach related activity.

Non-traditional pathways, innovation and software

With Dr Josh Case and Dr Eloise Sobels

 

Introduction

The traditional perception of a career in medicine in Australia involves graduating medical school, completing two years as a junior doctor, and then pursuing specialist training in an area of clinical medicine. However, it is now becoming increasingly more common for doctors to embark on non-traditional pathways in medicine such as diversifying one’s career to include digital health, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, writing, and management consulting. In this podcast, Eloise Sobels speaks with Dr Josh Case about the intersection of medicine and software, but more broadly about the benefits of walking a different path to those conventionally bestowed upon us.

 

  • My decision to pursue medicine was influenced by a combination of internal and external factors
  • Not only did I want a career that was people-oriented and that had the capacity to help people and change lives, but I also excelled in exams and had a longstanding interest in physiology and a fascination with the way the human body worked at a deeper level stemming from being a competitive athlete
  • My intent from very early on was to study medicine as soon as I possibly could after high school, so I pursued an undergraduate degree in biomedical science which was followed by a postgraduate degree in medicine
  • In retrospect I was relatively close-minded to other career pathways at this early stage – this ultimately transformed into a desire to diversify my career, which led me to where I am today
  • My involvement with digital tech started in high school in a somewhat haphazard manner when I would make my own computer games and websites as a hobby
  • Throughout postgraduate medicine my software projects evolved into formulating tools such as practice exam question generators, which provided a creative outlet for me to help people on a larger scale and in an innovative manner
  • By the time I was doing my rotations in medical school I had developed a decent skillset in terms of being generally knowledgeable about software systems on multiple platforms and being able to use them to reason around problems
  • After often being tasked with software-related projects on my rotations, I soon recognised that there was a titanic appetite for the type of skill that I had which was understanding day-to-day workflow problems from a medical perspective and to solve such shortcomings with software
  • I was then presented with an unbelievable opportunity immediately after graduating to do an internship with a medical software company for mobile phones and the web in Tel Aviv in Israel, often coined the ‘Silicon Valley of the Middle East’
  • The subsequent transition from spending 6 weeks in the technology hub of the Middle East to then starting internship in a hospital on a dated campus with paper forms was truly a culture shock which affirmed my desire to use software to make a change and address the frustrations of the systems in front of me
  • I eventually realised that the only way to make a change on a wider scale was to reduce my clinical hours and make the jump into a mixed career path
  • The concept of the medicine escalator or conveyor belt refers to doctors feeling trapped in a particular medical pathway or feeling pressured to strive for a smooth and streamlined career progression
  • This can be attributed to personal expectations secondary to having invested a significant amount of time and effort into building up this identity as a high achieving doctor, but also because we are often surrounded by talented and career-driven people who are seemingly working towards starting specialty training as early as possible
  • This issue is encountered by all doctors globally who embark on this career pathway; it reflects an issue with the systems and conditions in which we operate rather than any kind of personal shortcoming
  • It is important to understand that specialist training is an enormous undertaking which requires one to be absolutely certain about committing to a minimum of 4-6 years of training, multiple exams, and followed by further fellowship years
  • As per the AHPRA recency of practice guidelines, to maintain general registration, a doctor only needs to undertake clinical work for a total of 4 weeks in 12 months, or 12 weeks in 3 years; for this reason, I want to normalise taking the time to think about what you want to do with your career
  • One of the biggest problems facing the Australian healthcare industry is the ageing population and the associated explosion in healthcare costs – an issue which I am hoping to tackle through the digital world to not only lower healthcare costs but also to make the delivery of patient care more patient-centric and accessible for both patients and doctors
  • One of the advantages of leaving a large hospital was being free of the bureaucratic and hierarchical barriers associated with a large public health network and giving me the perspective to see problems inside the hospital ecosystem and find innovative ways to solve these issues externally
  • A current project I am working on to address the issue of workforce shortages is building a medical workforce marketplace that connects hospitals to doctors to fill urgent roster vacancies – we have refined a self-service model combined with automation tools to make getting a locum job as easy as renting an Airbnb
  • Take your time in working out what you want to do – this may involve spending more years rotating as a senior medical officer, taking time off, travelling, and exploring other avenues of clinical work
  • Get involved and surround yourself with similar people – the start-up community has an open-door policy and a vibrant ecosystem of live events, so try to go to in-person events, show genuine interest, and really get involved with the community
  • Put things out into the world around your area of interest – whether this be in the form of writing, producing videos or music, knitting; you will attract like-minded people who are interested and will want to connect with you
  • Rather than feeling pressured to pursuing a linear and traditional path within the confines of clinical medicine, it is important to take the time to figure out one’s career aspirations and consider the benefits of a mixed career path and integrating one’s interests and skills outside of medicine into clinical work
  • Although this process may be daunting and often perceived as untraditional, it is also exciting, transformative, fulfilling, and often is a risk worth taking
  • The intersection of software and medicine specifically allows for a multitude of opportunities to make significant changes to the delivery of healthcare remotely and on a global scale

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Tags: #biotechnology,#digital health,#digital healthcare,#digital technology,#healthcare,#junior doctors,#medical pathways,#Non-traditional medical pathways

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