Dr. Leo Damasco and Phoebe Gutierrez welcome Lauren Curtis, to share her journey from CVS to senior product manager at Parachute Health. Discover how she transitioned into health tech, founded Hey Health Tech to empower clinicians, and why clinicians are vital to shaping healthcare’s digital future. A must-listen for clinicians exploring non-clinical roles!
How can clinicians break into health tech and shape the future of healthcare? In this episode, Dr. Leo Damasco and Phoebe Gutierrez are joined by Lauren Curtis, who shares her bold move to join PillPack in its early days, cold-emailing her way into a role that kickstarted her health tech career. She discusses how she carved out non-clinical roles by solving operational inefficiencies, eventually leading to her passion project, Hey Health Tech, a platform with a newsletter and job board to help clinicians navigate health tech opportunities. Dr. Curtis emphasizes the value of clinicians’ soft skills—like communication and empathy—in tech roles and offers practical advice on reframing clinical experience for resumes (not CVs!) to land product or program management jobs. She also previews her upcoming community for clinicians to collaborate and learn about health tech, AI, and patient outcomes. This episode is packed with insights for clinicians feeling stuck or eager to bridge clinical expertise with healthcare innovation.
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About the Show:
Telemedicine Talks explores the evolving world of digital health, helping physicians navigate new opportunities, regulatory challenges, and career transitions in telemedicine.
About the Guest:
Lauren Curtis is a pharmacist-turned-health-tech-leader and senior product manager at Parachute Health. With a decade of experience in digital health, starting at PillPack (now part of Amazon), she founded Hey Health Tech, a platform featuring a newsletter and job board to empower clinicians to explore health tech careers. A passionate speaker, Lauren is launching a community to connect clinicians across specialties to learn about health tech, AI, and improving patient outcomes.
Website: https://www.heyhealthtech.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyhealthtech
About the Hosts:
[00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to telemedicine Talks, with Phoebe, Leo and our awesome guest. This is, Dr. Lauren Curtis, right? Phar d right. And she is a pharmacist turned health tech leader and speaker and turned senior product manager at Parachute Health.
She says that's her nine to five job, but really her passion project. Is, hey, health tech. And this is where she helps clinicians learn about and be comfortable about tech and you could find her in website, a job board and Instagram. We're gonna go further into that, but hey, Aloha. Welcome.
It's awesome having you here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, Awesome. this is great. 'cause we always talk about, tech and telemedicine and always kind of the transition, right? From, bread and butter clinician stuff, brick and mortar stuff into this big wide world of digital health, right?
Where telemedicine drops into and it just kind of intertwined right? So really we always ask people here when they [00:01:00] do make that transition can walk us along. how did you get from p RMD working at where, like a fellow at Novartis, right? Yes. Yeah. To where you are now and what you're doing now.
Sure. so it happened about 10 years ago. that's when digital health was like just a baby. There were not a lot of digital health companies or startups. And I was working at CVS as a pharmacy manager there and started really feeling like I was loving how we were helping patients, but I didn't think that the things we were being measured on were actually like improving patient outcomes.
You know, I was being measured on things that, I wasn't really passionate about. I wanted to be counseling patients and no one's really counting how many times you. Go help somebody with an over the counter selection. You know, those are all of the invisible things that pharmacists do and aren't getting paid for essentially.
But as a part of the job that we really love, [00:02:00] but as a part that I was feeling was not. Really valued by the company. So around that time, an old preceptor of mine that I had during school posted something on Facebook about a company that had just started up, and it was local to us called PillPack.
And for those who might not be familiar PillPack was a startup that started in 2013 and packaged medications by date and time, into sort of like a plastic roll. and that way it was great for people that were on lots of medications. it was great for people that needed to be able to remember to take their medications.
You could also take it on the go. Just a really great mission around making the experience better for people who took a lot of meds. It was just really sleek, really designed forward, and I saw the website and was like, whoa, this is really cool. And essentially they're doing what I'm doing. They're just shipping.
The meds nationwide instead of helping people in person. So I applied, I sent a cold email because they actually weren't [00:03:00] hiring. I just, I saw their website and was like obsessed from day one. so they weren't hiring. And I said, you know, I love your mission. I love what you're doing there and I see that you're not hiring, but when you are, I'd love to be considered.
And I attached my resume to that email and that sort of. Got the ball rolling. They really did reach out a few months later when they were looking for a pharmacist. And you know, to me, I didn't think that I was like making some big step into tech. I just thought this company. Seems to get it. They seem to want to actually improve the patient experience.
And it actually seemed like they cared about the clinician experience a lot too, which was meaningful to me. And so I made the leap and from there once I got started, I was in a clinical role for about six months to a year before I started seeing other. Jobs that could be done around the company and started seeing other work that could impact patients as well and started moving into nonclinical roles.
From there, we can go deeper intothat . But you [00:04:00] know, this is a recurring theme in the people that we talk to and whenever we ask these questions, it's like, Hey, how'd you get started? We're so clinically. Taught And trained that, that's just a one way thinking.
Like how hard was it to get on that and say, Hey, or to put yourself out there and just to get that cold email, and there's a bunch of different clinicians that we've talked to you know, this story kind of resonates. I believe in the mission or I just, started making cold calls and that was it.
there is no cold call class in, pharmacy school or medical school. they don't go, Hey, just put yourself out there to get a job. Like why did you think that was a great idea and how'd you get over any possible kind of hesitancy to do so? Yeah, it's funny because looking like that's not the type of person that I am.
I'm not somebody who's like. Takes big chances or anything like that. at least it turns out you are right. I guess it's not how I've ever thought of myself. it just made sense, I didn't really think about it. I was just like, [00:05:00] wow, this company looks amazing.
They're not hiring, but I can't let that be the end of it. You know? I've got to like, reach out and just let them know that I'm interested. What's the worst that could happen? And it turns out. I guess I don't know what the worst that can happen is. 'cause maybe best case scenario happened, but the company was so small at the time that it was the CEO who answered, and was like, oh, hey, sure.
We'll keep you in mind. And I don't know. I think it was like I didn't let those fears or what I should do get in the way. It was kind of like, this makes sense to me. I think I could do good work for them and like they should know who I am and I should reach out. No, that's amazing. That's amazing.
And as a sidebar,I pulled up the website for this pill pack thing and it such a great idea. Just on the ground floor of this thing, I'm like, oh, I could definitely use this. 'cause pills are everywhere. anyways was aside. Yeah, they're a great success story.
They're still shipping packets, just through Amazon now. Yeah. It's like, right. They're associated with Amazon now and [00:06:00] you made it when you're associated with Amazon. Right. that's right. So, no, that's amazing. So then tell us about, these administrative jobs. Because a lot of times, a lot of people that listen to us too, just one of our initial audience were clinicians that were tired of doing what they were doing, brick and mortar style, trying to branch out into something more administrative, more passively, more non clinic.
So tell us that kind of journey. Yeah, I think that, it's funny because we're doing a lot of this work day to day, but we don't, as clinicians always, I know that we really value the team members that are doing this type of work, but I don't think that we place value in it when we're doing it ourselves.
We learn clinical skills, we place value in the clinical skills, and we forget that the other stuff is important too. So for me, I. Started seeing things that I was handling patient calls, I was onboarding patients, but I was also answering patient questions when they [00:07:00] called in and it was pretty easy to start seeing themes.
I was like, you know what? We've got a lot of patient calls about this thing, and I could just go fix it and like, why ask someone else to go do it when I could just do it? I had the time. And so I started just fixing problems that I was seeing, which honestly felt amazing because at CVSI did not have the autonomy or the time to do that.
And for once I felt like I had the autonomy to, like, who was gonna say anything negative, if I was making positive impact on the business and patient lives it felt like I could actually take action. That was like win, win for everyone, and it was super fulfilling for me. So that's what I started doing.
I started solving some of those small things that I was seeing to try to reduce inbound call volume that the team was seeing. And then eventually I realized that I liked doing that work more because I could impact more patients at a time and went to my manager again in a bold move that I [00:08:00] wouldn't have normally thought I would make and just said, Hey, I think I really like this work.
I think that you enjoy that. I'm doing it for you. So why don't you just let me keep doing this? I don't know what we'll call it. You can call it whatever you want. I'll keep doing it. And then you can hire another pharmacist to do the pharmacist work. And, he agreed. And that's when all of this nonclinical admin work really kicked off officially.
Yeah. That's amazing. And that's another kind of theme that we're seeing in these successful stories is that I made my own job. That job did not exist, right? There was no title, there was no precedent, nothing like that. But you identified an issue, a problem, a need, right? Mm-hmm. And you know, you've been working for this company for some time, so you've proven yourself useful and trustworthy, and you just said, Hey, let me do this.
And they're like, oh, yeah. Great idea. you do this. You call yourself whatever you want, and we're gonna pay you to do so. [00:09:00] That's, I think that's amazing. And this is lost in us, I think as clinicians too, in, in the traditional sense, right? We are stuck in this pathway and, you know, you're supposed to do this and go along this path, and maybe if you wanna do admin, you wanna do this, but you're gonna have to fit within these traditional paths.
So it's amazing to hear these stories where, and like you said that this is not necessarily what you do, but you ended up. going on a limb and doing it anyways and it works out. It's, great to hear awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I also think too, like, one thing that I think was really interesting is that I think more often clinicians think that.
Again, I'll put my foot in my mouth, but like, you know, you're treating one patient. That's the most important thing. But like you had said, you're actually able to make an impact on so many more by fixing these very small problems, building inefficiencies, more patients could get seen.
It's a better experience, which again, I think is like. I wish there were more clinical [00:10:00] product managers and people like you, Lauren, in, some of the up and coming startups that are really trying to build solutions but they don't understand the clinician experience to be able to effectively do it.
Yeah. absolutely. I think that there's a thought that great product managers don't have to have this background. And that's true. Great Product managers do great user research and they really know their customer. they get very close to their customer, but there's nothing that replaces having lived it yourself and just knowing it innately.
When you are doing user research with clinicians, there are things that they just take for granted. I was guilty of this too. Like they just take for granted, that this is known or, that this is something that happens all the time and so things get kind of left out and it doesn't tell the whole story.
Um, certainly doesn't have to be the entire team, but having somebody with clinical background that can really [00:11:00] give that context is invaluable. And it works other way around too, right? You're talking about the administrative team and sometimes, the product team and ops team, they just go and they think, Hey, this is great.
But if you don't have that clinical input or the clinical background, or actually just being there, you know, in the trenches providing the context, sometimes it gets lost, right? Sometimes, it's inadvertent, or it's not on purpose, but you know, it just goes off on a tangent, which it doesn't, when it translates back onto the user end on the clinical end, right?
It doesn't make sense. And people start wondering. What the heck, right. What happened here? You know, on the clinical side, this is totally obvious, why didn't they think about this? But it's not totally obvious. Right on, on that end. Right. You know, you're right. You know, these, the product and the ops guys, they are great at what they are, but sometimes, you know, providing that bridge is.
Instrumental in getting a product out there? absolutely. The number of conversations I've been a [00:12:00] part of where, like the simple question of like, is this tool we're looking at HIPAA compliant or we'll be in a brainstorming session or something.
This happens a lot less frequently than it did in the early days. Right. But in a brainstorming session, we. Come up with all these ideas and just be that voice to be like, Ooh, actually we can't do that one. That is right. Illegal. No, that is not it. Yeah. Like, and you're sitting there, you're like, this is so obvious, but no.
Right. Yeah. And to your point, yeah, it just reduces that sort of like that thrash of going through ideas that someone with the background would know right off the bat, Aren't gonna fly. It's so valuable and really important and still justisn't really the norm.
No. and you're right on the clinician side, not a lot of people look it up for that, it's not on the radar. And just like you, you know, there's opportunities out there, people that see opportunities or see startups and whatnot. And don't want to take that opportunity, just introduce themselves and say, Hey, maybe I could help you doing this.
Right? Maybe I [00:13:00] could help you bridge the clinical side of the product side. I think Phoebe, we had a guest a while back. He was your partner, right? And one of the comments that he made was that, hey, I think the successful companies were the ones that were able to bridge that.
It just kind accentuated your point. The successful companies that he saw were the ones that were able to successfully bridge the clinical side of the product side, and people were talking, the communication was there. Mm-hmm. Because, working in the silos it just wasn't successful. So, yeah.
Well, I've had to do like my fair share of you know, I'm an ops person, so it's a little different, but you know, the amount of times that you have a company or an organization that is like willing to allow a nonclinical person to like. Build out A charting workflow or something to where I'm like, I have never done this before.
Like, I'll scream from the mountaintops. Like, I have never used an EHR before. Like, why would I be the person to come up with that plan? And so again, it's like, it saves time, it makes things efficient, but also it's like you, you wanna talk to the [00:14:00] people who have seen the problems and have been like, I would never design something that way.
If you're working with this. Specific user. Because to me it's like those are the nuggets of information that are actually super useful to a health tech company. That's awesome. Absolutely. now flipping the script a bit. you know, we mentioned, your newsletter and this passion project, yours or this, hey, health tech.
tell us more about that and why you're so passionate about it and what your goal is with that. Sure. Uh, well, the name of it comes from trying to make health tech approachable. like, just an introduction for clinicians on what health tech really is.
Because I still get questions where, the question is like, what is a health tech? because we have pharmacy technicians and other types of techs that work in healthcare, right? And the term is still not even used by healthcare professionals. They're like, what's a health tech specifically?
What do they do? And I'm like, no, no, no. It's like a whole [00:15:00] umbrella. And so really this started when I was at PillPack. I had a bunch of other pharmacists come up to me and say, Hey, looks like the work that you're doing is pretty cool. I'd be interested in doing something nonclinical.
Can you walk me through how you proved to everyone that, They should give you this chance, because to be quite honest, there's a bit of a narrative that clinicians should just stay doing clinical work and that they're expensive. So why would we pay them to do this nonclinical work?
But the fact of the matter is that they're paying these other. Roles just as much, if not more. And so really it's just a matter of like, the license is really valuable, and so people started coming up to me and then it started happening on LinkedIn. People that I did not directly work with saw the journey and started asking me questions, and that's when it kind of turned into something a bit more formal.
I was like, maybe I should just start writing about this online because clearly people. Need this [00:16:00] information, they're craving it. Um, so I started the newsletter a couple of years ago and about the same time also started, the HA health tech job board. And that has really been the foundation of the business.
Mostly just getting the word out there about what this is and how can you make this transition as a clinician if you are interested in working in healthcare technology, but also how is healthcare technology going to change the landscape of your role? Even if you're gonna stay clinical, this is the future and we should not be considering it to be something like holistically different.
We have to find a way for us to. Meld all of these things together, you know, your digital health company with, you know, the wearable that a patient is wearing with their brick and mortar PCP that they're visiting. Like all of these experiences can't continue to feel like this disjointed experience for [00:17:00] patients.
They expect more at this point. They get more from other experiences in their life. You know, like it's easier to make a dinner reservation than it is to make. The doctor's appointment, which on some level I understand, but also like we could be doing so much better, at even the little things. And so really it came out of a necessity of not seeing enough clinicians in the space and realizing that clinicians really didn't even know.
What was happening in this space and people were building it without their voice in the room. That's a great point, right? Because yeah. And again, the clinicians are the end user. And if they're building it without our input Yeah. Then we get to where we're at now. It's people, just, clinicians are scratching their head saying, Hey, what happened here?
This is, bread and butter kind of knowledge is not happening. Now when you talk to these clinicians that came up to you, what was their biggest kind of barrier? What trends do you see that are not allowing the clinicians [00:18:00] to make that jump naturally?
You know, So what is your best advice that, or the most common advice that you've been giving these clinicians that come to seek your advice? I think it's two things. I think the first is learning to value those soft skills. I think we know how to value our clinical skills, but things like communication, empathy.
Teamwork and collaboration, things that we very much do, but take for granted, right? It's figuring out how to learn to sell those skills as opposed to leading with your clinical knowledge. And I also think the second part is really about understanding that in areas outside of healthcare, and of course a few others, like
There's no degree or specific pathway that you're supposed to take to get a certain job. so I think a lot of people think like, oh, should I go back to school? or they ask the direct question, like, the very first question they ask me is, what certifications [00:19:00] do I need if I wanna get into health tech?
And I'm like, well, depends on what type of role you might want. And I get that many people don't even know what the roles are that are possible, but we tend to, as clinicians, lead with education thinking that is going to solve our problems. And, you know, once we just get this extra certification, then we'll be qualified to do the job.
And it's just not how it works. Well isn't that how we were trained? How do I become a better clinician? Read more, learn more. You know, regurgitate the information better, right? That's what's residency for me, you know, if the clinician path, so it's no surprise. And how many classes do we get on clinical education versus these soft skills, right? Like how to become more empathetic. Honestly, I think I had a class with you. I wasn't a great listener in that class, so, but still we won't put listening on your resume. But it wasn't like, okay, yeah, we have to make this super important.
You know, this is front facing forward. It was just kind of an aside, [00:20:00] right? Hey, you know, this is how your bedside manner should be. But you know, we all know those teachers that were, rough and gruff and we're just like, just. Get it done and just learn. Yeah, no, that's good thought.
And so what do you tell 'em? other than, Hey, you can do it. you're gonna tell somebody, yeah. You could do it. And how do you convince 'em? How do you convince them that Yeah. They do indeed qualify for these rules? Yeah,well, I think that it's about not just saying.
But you do know how to communicate with people. You do know how to do teamwork. It's about reframing the things that they're already doing to prove that they're already doing the work, right? No one wants to give you a chance in any industry unless it's like a super entry role in your.
Just graduating from college, like no one really wants to give you a chance just based on the potential that you know how to be a good communicator. You have to prove that you already are. And I think that what I try to do is like, really show [00:21:00] clinicians here's what you're doing day to day.
Let me show you how that really translates to, what I do every day. And so, as an example. Project management. I think a lot of people are like, Ooh, I don't know. Deadlines, working with lots of people. I don't know how to do project management. And I'm like, literally, every patient is a project you have to come up with an action plan.
You have to assess what's going on. You have to communicate to them what you need them to do versus what you're going to do, what the milestones are. Every patient that you work on is a project. And so starting to translate some of the things that they do day to day into what that might look like in a different type of role starts to, resonate with folks.
Because that's what it really comes down to is being able to showcase how you're already doing the work and already being successful doing the work. Mm-hmm. No, that's, amazing to hear. 'cause I'm looking at your job board right now, right? And there's quite a few [00:22:00] project managers, program managers, right?
Mm-hmm. And even now I'm listening to you and I'm like, I don't know. Can, I really apply to these project manager jobs? have I ever been in charge of a true Product ops? Maybe, maybe not. I can't really tell. And just looking at these job boards, it's like, okay, is this really meant for me or for somebody else?
Mm-hmm. Right. And yeah getting into that and, you know, extrapolating kind of what we do day to day into this, I could see how, that kind of closes the gap. Yeah, that's exactly why the job board exists. It's not a full representation of all of the jobs that exist in the space, but my goal is to make it a sampling of the types of jobs that I see clinicians being successful in.
And, hope that I can give people some examples of the types of titles that they should be considering and they can start reading through job descriptions and being like, huh, that sounds interesting, or, I could do that. So This is totally [00:23:00] hear you, you are not alone in thinking like, no.
And really the list is pretty daunting. And I am like, wow. do you see a lot of clinicians, a lot of doctors as like a senior program manager? And I'm sure you do and you just goes to show how, you know, I'm in the other camp. Right. And I'm probably the type of audience that you're reaching out to, just looking at the job board.
And yeah, so what's the best way to reach it? Just go on the board and just say, Hey, you know, I think I could do this. what kind of soft skills, when they do apply to these jobs, should they focus on, you know, I'm sure you know, my CV is like, Hey, I've worked these clinical jobs, I'm an ER doctor, PS doctor, so forth and so on, and doesn't necessarily.
Speak out to, let's say this product management job, right? So how do we set ourselves up as clinicians to get to actually think that. I could do this job. I love that question so much. Well, okay, so first of all, the [00:24:00] fact that you called it a CV tells me a lot.
this is something that I love to work with people on. I have a couple of different resume offerings for this exact reason. we cannot be applying to health tech roles with the cv. That's not what they want. No one wants to read 10 pages of all the cool clinical things you've done and all presentations that you've given and all of the classes that you've taken.
I worked so hard at 'em. I know. And we have such trouble letting go, you know, we're like, gotta tell somebody. I want you to know about my presentation that I did as an intern two decades ago. What I tell people is. We've gotta convert that CV into a proper resume.
And the way that I think about it is that a CV is a biography. A CV tells the story of all of the things that you have done in your clinical career. It tells like the presentations, all of the rotations, every single thing. The [00:25:00] resume is different because it's a marketing document. It's not telling the company.
All of the things that you've done, it's telling them all of the things that you can do for them. And so the way that you're writing it is completely different because it's not focused on you and your background and your history and asking someone to be like, okay, so I see here that there was a presentation done on diabetes, you know, five years ago and we're a diabetes company.
So like sure, I see the connection A CV is truly asking people to not only read 10 pages, but then summarize it in their head and try to connect the dots between that and the job description that they've posted. And when I say somebody, what I really mean is either AI that is first reviewing the resume
Or a recruiter that either doesn't have clinical background or also doesn't really know much outside of the job description as far as [00:26:00] what's required to do the job. Whereas a resume, you're just doing all of that work for them. Not only is it shorter, it's more concise, but you are connecting all of the dots for the reader between what they're saying that they want in the job description and what your skills are.
And the shorter you can make that distance between your experience and what they're looking for, the better. So that is what I coach people on. It's really about like, Reverse engineering that job description and doing all of that heavy lifting for them on how your skills translate.
That's an interesting take on that 'cause. Yeah. No. Like, we'll put Leo's on our website. Thank you. We need it. We have to. Now that's gonna be next. Not after this. So comprehensive, right. I want you to love Me and the only way I know how is to send my CV of all my awesome accomplishments.
Actually, it's not that long, but still. No, that is an interesting thought [00:27:00] process on that. And yeah, it is definitely shaking the paradigm of how you successfully get into that, right. and approach this thing. So That's interesting. Yeah.
Well, and I think one thing too, to Lauren's point is that. My experience in startups and in health tech has been, if you're a hard worker and you're open to learning, there's a place for you and it might take a little bit of time to figure out where that exactly is, but it's a really good environment to figure out like, do you like program management?
Do you like product management? Do you wanna do data? Maybe you wanna do, compliance. Like I think depending on. Your personality and your, grit. There's a lot of possibilities for you to do anything. And really to your point before too, there's the possibility of growth and pivoting within, you know, once you get ingrained in this company, once you've identified certain things that you think you're gonna be good [00:28:00] at, that you could grow and pivot within a company.
I think companies love that. I think they do. They're like, Hey, this person is invested in this, where they've already carved out what they think they're really good at and could help us. And, knowing a lot of processes and kinda startups and CEOs, I think I'm gonna put words in their mouth, but I think they would appreciate that.
And it shows, right? It shows that a lot of the successful people are the ones that have done that. Have been proactive and take it upon themselves to put themselves out there. So, I'm looking at the job board still. This is amazing because I'm scrolling it right now as we talk and I'm like, oh, okay.
That's what that means. I'm opening up this like senior product manager and if you haven't taken a look at this, and I'm looking at, this product management job here. For a telehealth company. And when you actually pare down to it, I'm like, oh, okay.
I've done these things, you know? Yes. I've led teams And then, you know, it's like, hey, they want these clinical experiences, clinical background, and that's the value add [00:29:00] that the clinicians have, that other product managers not in this space has. Yeah, right. So that's what they're missing, and I think
That's where we could come in and say, Hey, this is my big value add. I've actually done this. Now I go back around and talk about it in the front end instead of, you know, on the back end. That's great. I will say, I know that it sounds, maybe we're making it sound so easy, just so you've got the skills you can do it.
I do think there's like a huge identity piece that has to be overcome with clinicians. Yes. Oh yeah. This is another resounding theme that we have on this podcast is. Who are you, right? Like How do you identify and how do you get over that kind of stuck identity of that? This is the only people that we are and this is the only thing that we're good at.
So what's your take on that? Sorry, I've almost, I hijacked that, but what's your take on that thought? this is not like a thing that you confront once and then, oh, I'm done. Like I figured out my [00:30:00] identity. You're just constantly confronting it. And I think that even clinicians that go into management roles and then aren't practicing quite as much or in the same capacity also go through this.
So you will just confront this multiple times in your career. I think that for me I still consider myself a pharmacist. I do still have my license. I haven't needed it in a decade, but I still have it. Uh, and every once in a while I'm like, maybe I should just drop it. But it is part of my identity and that's my choice.
I know others that have gotten rid of theirs and that's fine. They're also still pharmacists. Yeah. I think that I was very tied to the title. And what I really needed to understand was for a long time I knew that I wanted to help people. I knew that I wanted to do that through healthcare, and it took a long time for me to realize that people that weren't clinicians were also helping people.
I know that [00:31:00] sounds so basic. But it's my career, Lauren and my career. it's like I feel so bad, like, I dunno what you've been doing, but we've been helping people. But you bring up a great point. Yeah. This is what you've been trained, right? Like from the very get go, even from college times, right?
Like, this is where it goes.I don't know where you wanna be in college. But you know, this is what most people go through, clinicians. This is their identity for the longest time. And stepping out of the beaten path in terms of clinicians is hard. It shakes them to the core, right? It does.
So, that's like best case scenario, right? Best case scenario is you did think about this as a college student and you made the choice that you wanted to be a clinician. there are others who, Did this because of expectations. Or family pressure and have maybe never
Really been confronted with what they want to do. And that's a big part of this transition. Well, and that brings up [00:32:00] another problem too. Right now you're having to deal with the identity that people have created for you. And breaking that out. Now, not only do you have to convince yourself this is who you are.
Now you have to convince my Asian mother that I do more than, doctoring. Right. so things like that. Yeah, totally. spoiler alert, when you work in tech, it is pretty much guaranteed that your family is just never going to understand what you do. Um, so, that'll be like A lifetime of trying to convince your parents that.
It's still important and it's still a stable job. but yeah, absolutely. And so You're trying to convince family. You're trying to convince yourself and you're also trying to convince potential employers, right? Even maybe before you believe it yourself. that's a tough one.
Now we are closing up on time, but I always like to ask this one last question. If you go back and let's say you're just graduating from pharmacy school, what is the one piece of advice [00:33:00] that you would tell yourself, going back and it's in time machine, you know, this is what you need to do now, knowing what you know now,
Well, I think there's one thing that I would tell myself because I know that I did this right, which is that I stayed open to opportunities that came available to me. I took opportunities. I looked for opportunities, and I didn't really know what that meant, but I followed what I was interested in.
I think the thing that I would maybe tell myself. trying to change. What I had actually done was, I don't think that during school I really tested the waters enough. I was pretty strict in what path I thought I was going down, and because of that, I didn't do any networking.
I didn't seek any interesting opportunities just based on what I thought I might enjoy I didn't put that emphasis on [00:34:00] relationship building once I started seeing it, I was like, oh gosh, this looks really interesting.
But there was a lot of time where I just. Thought that all I needed to do was stay laser focused in order to succeed, and then I would be doing that one thing forever and I would be happy doing that one thing forever. I think I would tell myself that success looks like being happy with what I'm doing in the current moment, and I should be less attached to what I think that looks like today in that moment.
That's great, and you're a testament to that, right? Jumping in, seizing the moment. That's awesome. I didn't know what product management was when I was in pharmacy school. So if I had told myself, well, you're gonna be a product manager, I'm not sure I would've been impressed by that at all.
Turns out I don't either look into these job descriptions like, oh, that's way different from what I thought Well, and like speaking to your newest opportunity which is. You are kind of launching your own community. Do you wanna, share a little bit [00:35:00] about your next chapter of what you're starting next?
Sure. Yeah. it feels a little vulnerable and it feels super meta almost because I've never felt so much more like a product manager in my own business as well. So I do product management in my nine to five. and this is. Now a product that I'm launching for Hay Health Tech that I'm really passionate about.
I'm gonna be launching a small beta so people can give me feedback first before full launch. But yeah, I think that there needs to be a space where clinicians can feel safe to come together and learn about these concepts. I also have noticed that there's a lot of really siloed communities that exist out there.
You know, there are nursing communities, there are pharmacy communities and doctor communities or physician communities, but that's not really how it works in health tech, and I don't think that's really how it works in healthcare in general. We're all working collaboratively on teams and there's no reason that we need to be like.
Siloing [00:36:00] how we learn things post school, so I'm really excited to build a community of all types of clinicians where we can come together and talk about health tech, talk about these concepts, talk about AI and its impact on what we're doing, both the good and the bad. Talk about how we're improving patient outcomes.
And just learn together. So we'll have, you know, monthly workshops, we'll have challenges, we'll have networking opportunities. I'm really excited about it. No, that's awesome. How do we find it? Yeah, so you can go to my website, hey health tech.com, or you can follow on Instagram because as things start rolling out in the next few weeks, I will be posting a lot about it.
Cool. Yeah, and that's also. Hey, health tech is my handle on all socials, TikTok, everything. Yeah. You may get an inquiry from a certain er slash doctor , so heads up, look out for that one. Yeah. I certainly will. I think that's the goal is to like, wherever you are on the [00:37:00] spectrum, whether you never intend to leave clinical work and are just interested in.
What's happening in this space and how can you learn to adapt as things are changing all the way to someone who, wants this to be their career. And wherever you are on that spectrum the hope is that the community is for you. and I definitely value the value of this community, right?
it's huge. And, you know, I didn't believe in. Communities like that before, but there's definitely strength in a community like this one. Mm-hmm. There's no application process. I'm filling something out to attach your cv.
Right. It turns out my CV sucks, so I need to shorten it of it. But no. This is awesome. Well, I signed up for your newsletter. any other closing thoughts? No. thank you to both of you for having these conversations. Like this is not something that can be done alone.
You know, we all need to be [00:38:00] spreading the word. I think that healthcare is in a really weird spot right now. there's a lot of work to be done and we need a lot of different types of people with lots of different backgrounds helping to actually make change and see change. So I think that if, there are people in the audience that are feeling stuck or are just feeling like they wish.
They could do more to move the needle in what's happening in healthcare. That opportunity exists if you look around for it. So I hope that, the podcast and platforms like mine too can be like that beam of light in a sometimes kind of dark place. Well, thank you so much for your time.
Honestly. I enjoyed this time with you. Thank you so much for joining us and hopefully you could do so in the future just to give us a, follow up. Hey, health tech.com is Lauren's website. I've been on it while we've been [00:39:00] talking it. There's definitely useful stuff in there. Check it out.
Um, also her Instagram, what's your Instagram? Hey, health Tech. Oh, too easy. Yeah. Simple guy like me could figure that out too. So yes, you'll have one more follower after this as well. Awesome. So thank you so much for your time, telemedicine talks. drop us the line and we'll see you again next time.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you.