Shows
The PennHealthX Podcast87 - Dr. Evan Fieldston - Leadership, Operations, & Value-Based CareHosts Habib & Ziad sit down with Dr. Evan Fieldston, Associate Chief Medical Officer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine, who focuses on improving healthcare systems for children and their families. They discuss his journey from childhood patient to physician-leader, how training in pediatrics, business, and public policy shapes his approach to value in healthcare, the nuts and bolts of evidence-based management and quality improvement, the role of technology and AI in hospital operations, CHOP’s future expansion and behavioral health initiatives, and his advice for students interested in syst...
2025-12-0352 min
The PennHealthX Podcast86 - Dr. Akl Fahed - Digital Health, Genetics, & GLP-1sIn this episode of the PennHealthX Podcast, Habib sits down with Dr. Akl Fahed to discuss his career as an interventional cardiologist, physician–scientist, and digital health entrepreneur working at the frontiers of genomic medicine and chronic disease care. Dr. Fahed serves at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, where he leads an NIH-funded research program focused on using large-scale genomics and data science to better understand cardiometabolic disease and identify risk long before symptoms appear. He is also the clinical co-founder of GoodPath, a virtual-first care platform that delivers integrated, whole-person management for chronic conditions through a mu...
2025-11-1459 min
The PennHealthX Podcast85 - Dr. Alex Beschloss - Insights, Policy, and PracticeToday, we’re taking with Dr. Beschloss. Dr. Beschloss is a resident physician in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Wharton School, where he earned his MD/MBA. A Williams College alum, his work sits at the intersection of clinical care, health policy, and healthcare innovation. Before residency, he worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, focusing on healthcare financing and policy reform. He now serves as an Assistant Medical Director at Accompany Health, advancing value-based care models for dual-eligible and high-risk Medicare Advantage pati...
2025-10-2949 min
The PennHealthX Podcast84 - Dr. Kevin Volpp - Behavior, Incentives, & SystemsIn this episode of the PennHealthX Podcast, Habib sits down with Dr. Kevin Volpp to discuss his career as a physician–economist and his pioneering work at the intersection of medicine, economics, and behavioral science. Dr. Volpp is the Mark Pauly President’s Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School. He founded the Center for Health Incentives & Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) and co-created Penn Medicine’s Nudge Unit—the first behavioral design team embedded in a health system. This episode explores how behavioral economics and incentive-based interventions are transfor...
2025-10-1430 min
The PennHealthX Podcast83 - Dr. Rachel Kelz - Surgery, Equity, & InnovationIn this episode of the PennHealthX Podcast, hosts Ziad Hassan and Habib Akouri sit down with Dr. Rachel Kelz to discuss her path into surgery and the wide-ranging impact of her career. Dr. Kelz is the William Maul Measey Professor of Surgery and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. She also directs Penn’s Center for Surgery and Health Economics, where she applies advanced analytics and AI to improve surgical outcomes, health equity, and medical education. A nationally recognized surgeon, educator, and researcher, Dr. Kelz has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and earned nu...
2025-10-0148 min
The PennHealthX Podcast82 - Dr. Daniel Hashimoto - Surgery, Innovation, & AIIn this episode, we speak with Dr. Daniel Hashimoto, Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Hashimoto shares his journey at the intersection of surgery and artificial intelligence, exploring how computer vision and machine learning are reshaping surgical education and practice. He also reflects on his path to becoming a leading voice in the emerging field of surgical AI.
2025-08-2945 min
The PennHealthX Podcast81 - Dr. Ryan O'Keefe - From Podcast to PracticeIn this episode, hosts Ziad Hassan and Habib Akouri sit down with Dr. Ryan O'Keefe for an engaging conversation that takes the podcast back to its original roots.
Ryan O'Keefe, MD, MBA, is a hospitalist at Penn Medicine and creator of Point of Care Medicine. Point of Care Medicine is an online educational reference for students and physicians alike providing critical information in the form of clinical templates, graphics and podcasts to support proper decision making through both proactive learning and in-the-moment refreshers. He discusses his journey obtaining an MBA and the path he has taken to impact medicine through...
2025-07-261h 03
The PennHealthX Podcast80 - Dr. Ryan Henrici - Biotech & Global HealthIn this episode, hosts Ziad Hassan and Habib Akouri sit down with Dr. Ryan Henrici for an engaging conversation that bridges science, innovation, and personal journey.
Ryan Henrici, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist specializing in infectious diseases and hematology. A former Marshall Scholar, he serves as Vice President of Discovery Medicine at BigHat Biosciences, where he leads the development of next-generation antibody therapeutics using artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. Additionally, he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
2025-05-1951 min
The PennHealthX Podcast79 - Michael Karamardian & Medha Sharma - Leveraging the MD/MBA in a Dynamic Medical LandscapeToday's episode is a conversation between hosts Ziad Hassan and Habib Akouri and guests Michael Karamardian and Medha Sharma, previous Co-Presidents of PennHealthX.
2025-05-0141 min
The PennHealthX Podcast78 - Josh Makower - A Career of Innovation in Med Tech and Venture CapitalToday’s episode is a conversation between Sope Eweje, one of the VP’s of Entrepreneurship and Ventures for Penn HealthX, and our guest, Dr. Josh Makower.
Josh currently leads medical device investment as a general partner at NEA, one of the world’s largest and most active venture capital firms. Josh is also the Founder and Executive Chairman of ExploraMed, a medical device incubator that has created 8 companies over the past 20 years. Notable transactions from the ExploraMed portfolio include Acclarent, acquired by J&J in 2009, EndoMatrix, acquired by C.R. Bard in 1997, TransVascular, acquired by Medtronic in 2003 and Neotract acquir...
2021-03-101h 02
The PennHealthX Podcast77 - Sandy Varatharajah - Planning For a Career to Transform Healthcare Via Digital HealthToday’s episode is a conversation with one of my colleagues, Sandy Varatharajah. Sandy is a 2nd year MBA student and a member of the Healthcare Management program at Wharton. In the episode, we discuss what drew her to the healthcare space, her previous experiences, including interning at the white house, consulting, and working for CityBlock. We also discussed the decision to get an MBA, and some of the interviews she has done for the Pulse Podcast by the Wharton Digital Health club. We end with some things she is most looking forward to in the coming years.
If you li...
2020-10-1757 min
The PennHealthX Podcast76 - Dr. Arpan Parikh - Using Business Skills to Improve The Future of PsychiatryToday’s episode is a conversation I had with Dr. Arpan Parikh. Dr. Parikh was a colleague of mine at Wharton last year. He has since graduated and moved on to a role with CareMore Health. Dr. Parikh got his MD at Ohio State, and completed his residency in Psychiatry at Mt. Sinai in New York City.
In the episode, we discuss what drew him to medicine and psychiatry, memories he had as a student, clinical roles he took on, why he chose to get an MBA, and how he will use his skills at CareMore Health.
It was an ab...
2020-08-2356 min
The PennHealthX Podcast75 -Adam Lessler - From EM Residency to Consulting and Venture Capital/Growth EquityToday’s episode is a conversation I had with Dr. Adam Lessler, who is currently a Principal at Evidity Health Capital in New York City. He is a licensed physician with residency training in emergency medicine and over a decade of healthcare industry experience counseling Boards and senior leadership teams.
Prior to joining Evidity, Adam was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, where he served clients across the health care value chain, with a focus on provider growth and M&A/partnership strategy. Previously, Adam completed his internship in emergency medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and wo...
2020-08-161h 05
The PennHealthX Podcast74 - Kwaku Owusu - CEO of DrugViu - Eliminating the Underrepresentation of POC in Clinical TrialsToday’s episode is one I co-hosted with Mariam Alausa, who is the current co-VP of Curriculum for Penn HealthX. Our guest was Kwaku Owusu, who is the founder and CEO of DrugViu and TrialViu.
Drugviu aggregates patient-related outcomes for people of color who take specific pharmaceutical drugs. TrialViu is a companion site that then educates those same patients about clinical trials, and then matches them to trials they may qualify for using AI.
Their lofty mission is to eliminate underrepresentation in medicine
Reading from DrugViu’s website to share more about the problem they are looking to solve:
Racial and...
2020-08-0946 min
The PennHealthX Podcast73 - Erik Maltais, CEO of IMMERTEC - Innovation in Surgical Education Using Virtual RealityToday’s episode is with Erik Maltais, who is the founder and CEO of IMMERTEC, which is a company using virtual reality tools to bring remote surgeons and trainees into the OR to teach them skills and how to use certain medical devices.
He has a really cool background in both the business and medical worlds, and it was a pleasure to speak with him to learn about his journey, the process of founding IMMERTEC and finding physicians to collaborate with, and what the long term goals are.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Erik Maltais.
Host - Ryan O...
2020-08-0454 min
The PennHealthX Podcast72 - Catherine Bryt - Creating a Healthcare Services Marketplace with Sibi HealthThis episode is a conversation I had with one of my friends and Wharton colleagues, Catherine Bryt. Catherine is the CEO and founder of Sibi Health. Put simply, Sibi Health is a marketplace for healthcare services, now serving the Philadelphia area. You can compare local doctors and pre-set service prices for both in-person and video visits, select, book, and pay in advance using a credit card or HSA/FSA card, and then receive care.
In the episode, we discuss Catherine’s background studying neuroscience and economics, some of the jobs she had before Wharton, and what her experience has been li...
2020-07-1551 min
The PennHealthX Podcast71 - Dr. David Nash - A Deep Dive Into Population Health and the Future of the U.S Healthcare SystemIn this episode, back by popular demand, is Dr. David Nash. Dr. Nash was a guest back in March for episode #45 when we spoke about how population health transforming the healthcare system. We decided to have him back to continue the conversation and delve deeper into how clinicians are actually utilizing data being collected, and what the future holds.
Dr. Nash is the Founding Dean of the Jefferson College of Population Health in Philadelphia. He completed his MD at the University of Rochester and his internal medicine residency at Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Hewas a RWJ Clinical...
2020-06-2056 min
The PennHealthX Podcast70 - Zack Gray - Co-Founding Ophelia to Improve Access for Patients Addicted to OpioidsIn this episode, I interview Zack Gray, who is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ophelia, which seeks to address the opioid epidemic by making medication-assisted treatment (MAT) private, convenient, and affordable for patients. Zack is a graduate of Columbia where he studied Astrophysics and Philosophy. After being in the working world for a few years, he pursued an MBA at Wharton. During this time, he was able to work on building Ophelia.
Ophelia took the 1st Place prize at the Penn HealthX Conference Pitch competition last year when Ophelia was still in the works. Thus, I was excited to catch...
2020-06-1744 min
The PennHealthX Podcast69 - Dr. Jane Zhu - What's the Deal with Private Equity in Healthcare Services?This episode is an interview with Dr. Jane Zhu. Dr. Zhu is an assistant professor of medicine at OHSU, and a practicing primary care provider. She studied global health at Duke, received both an MD and an MPP from Harvard, completed her internal medicine residency at USCF, and was a National Clinician Scholar at Penn. She remains a senior fellow for the Leonard Davis Institute at Penn, which is how I found out about her exciting research! Her interests span across many fields and include payment reform, mental and behavioral health, and improving equity and access for patients.
We touch...
2020-06-141h 03
The PennHealthX Podcast68 - Michellene Davis - How We Can Fight to Address the Social Determinants of HealthIn light of the recent events across the country, I wanted to read a statement that Penn HealthX sent out to our community and the Perelman School of Medicine. Along with this, we decided to move up an episode in our release schedule with Michellene Davis. Michelle is a healthcare leader who has dedicated her entire career to addressing the Social Determinants of Health, especially as they impact communities of color. I’ll begin by reading our statement, and then I’ll tell you more about Michellene and the episode.
---------------------------------------------------
Dear HealthX Community,
We write to address the recent even...
2020-06-071h 13
The PennHealthX Podcast67 - Dr. Angela Bradbury - Improving Communication About Cancer Genetics in an Evolving FieldThis episode was done in collaboration with the American Cancer Society or ACS. May is National Cancer Research Month, and we wanted to help promote a great program they have launched called ResearcHERS. We'll share some links in the show notes, but in short, to share some words from the team, ResearcHERS empowers women to fundraise in support of women-led cancer research, but it's more than just a fundraising campaign. ResearcHERS is a movement. A sisterhood of purpose determined to sustain women-led cancer research and recognize the female trailblazers in the field. While the American Cancer Society has funded 49 researchers...
2020-05-2344 min
The PennHealthX Podcast66 - COVIDCast #17 - Elana Meer and Maguire Herriman - Developing a COVID Chatbot With GoogleThis episode is a continuation of our COVIDCast series. In it, Jonathan Wakim and I speak with Maguire Herriman and Elana Meer about a COVID Chatbot project they worked on at Penn along with Google to better address questions posed by those who visit the Penn Medicine website to learn about the coronavirus and current policies.
To give you some more perspective on the project, I’ll read off from an article highlighting the work.
A Penn team led by Roy Rosin, MBA, and Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, and a team from Google have created an AI chatbot to help an...
2020-05-2129 min
The PennHealthX Podcast65 - COVIDCast #16 - Prof Mauro Guillen - The Economic Impact of the PandemicThis episode is a recording of a virtual talk hosted by Penn HealthX with Professor Mauro Guillen. In the talk, Professor Guillen discussed the economic impacts of the pandemic and makes the case for opening the economy as soon as we can do so safely.
Though the presentation included slides, the audio is easy to follow along with. The intended audience for the talk was medical students without a background in economics, and many of the questions asked and discussion that resulted from them are relevant to any healthcare provider, or anyone who wants to learn from one of the...
2020-05-181h 04
The PennHealthX Podcast64 - COVIDCast #15 - Dr. Umang Jain - How COVID Has Changed Life for an EM ResidentIn this episode, I spoke with Dr. Umang Jain, who is a 3rd-year emergency medicine resident at Penn. We start off the episode discussing his interdisciplinary background and interests and what drew him to emergency medicine. We then speak about how COVID-19 has impacted his experience working in the emergency room, and how it has impacted residency training and the types of patients that he has been seeing. We also touch on some unexpected consequences of social distancing on the types of things presenting in the ED, the ways medical students and the community have come together to help healthcare...
2020-05-1352 min
The PennHealthX Podcast63 - COVIDCast #14 - Rolling Out COVID Watch to Monitor Patients At Homehis episode was created for The Perelman School of Medicine’s online Health Systems curriculum for second-year clerkship students. In it, third-year medical student Casey Kim (who was previously featured on the Podcast for her work with POHPS and creating COVIDigests) and finished our interview with Dr. Kirstin Knox and Dr. Anna Morgan.
In part 2 we discuss the COVIDWatch program which uses SMS to check in on and triage patients who are awaiting testing results, or who are COVID-positive and at risk of suffering from more serious symptoms while they are self-isolating at home. We go into some of the ch...
2020-05-1116 min
The PennHealthX Podcast62 - COVIDCast #13 - The STEP-19 Program for Patients with the Highest NeedsThis episode was created for The Perelman School of Medicine’s online Health Systems curriculum for second-year clerkship students. In it, third-year medical student Casey Kim (who was previously featured on the Podcast for her work with POHPS and creating COVIDigests) and I interviewed Dr. Kirstin Knox, Dr. Anna Morgan, Amber Kuestner who is an RN, and Catherine Stieglitz who is a social worker at Penn Med.
In part 1 of this episode, all our guests discuss their roles, how they have changed due to the coronavirus, and then we discuss the STEP 19 program which is an offshoot of the STEP pr...
2020-05-1118 min
The PennHealthX Podcast61 - COVIDCast #12 - Adapting to the Unique Safety Concerns of COVID-19This episode was created for The Perelman School of Medicine’s online Health Systems curriculum for second-year clerkship students. In it, third-year medical student Casey Kim (who was previously featured on the Podcast for her work with POHPS and creating COVIDigests) and I interviewed Caryn Douma and Cynthia Line.
Caryn is Corporate Director of Patient Safety for Penn Medicine, and Cynthia is the Senior Improvement Advisor for Clinical Effectiveness Quality Improvement.
In the episode, we discuss how the health system has responded to the COVID pandemic to ensure both patients and healthcare workers are as safe as they can be.
Ca...
2020-05-1120 min
The PennHealthX Podcast60 - COVIDCast #11 - Dr. Julie Uspal - Coordinating an ED's Response to COVIDThis episode was created for The Perelman School of Medicine’s online Health Systems curriculum for second-year clerkship students. In it, third-year medical student Casey Kim (who was previously featured on the Podcast for her work with POHPS and creating COVIDigests) and I interview Dr. Julie Uspal, who is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine, and is the Co-Director for Quality and Safety for the HUP EM department.
In the episode, we discuss how the health system and emergency department have had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what she’s learned over the last few months.
We hope...
2020-05-1113 min
The PennHealthX Podcast59 - COVIDCast #10 - Improving Prenatal and Postpartum Care In the Era of COVIDThis episode was created for The Perelman School of Medicine’s online Health Systems curriculum for second-year clerkship students. In it, third-year medical student Casey Kim (who was previously featured on the Podcast for her work with POHPS and creating COVIDigests) and I interview Dr. Anna Graseck and Dr. Kirstin Leitner, who are both Ob/Gyn physicians.
They tell us more about the THEA program for blood pressure monitoring in prenatal patients, and the Healing at Home program which performs virtual postpartum follow-up appointments. We discuss how the programs have had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what they’ve l...
2020-05-1116 min
The PennHealthX Podcast58 - COVIDCast #9 - Charlotte Tisch - How Egyptian Archeology Helped Us Dig Up PPEToday’s episode is a continuation of our COVIDCast series. In it, Jonathan Wakim and I interview Charlotte Tisch, who is a first-year medical student at Penn who was able to help secure PPE for hospital systems in the early days of the COVID pandemic by digging it out from the basements of various museums in New York and Philadelphia. We talk about her experience studying Egyptian Archeology, working in museums and aquariums, why she chose to pursue medicine, how she’s gotten involved in the COVID pandemic response, and what’s ahead.
Hosts: Ryan O'Keefe and Jonathan Wakim
Show Notes
...
2020-05-1024 min
The PennHealthX Podcast57 - COVIDCast #8 - Olivia Best - Promoting Wellness During a PandemicIn this episode, Jonathan Wakim and I spoke with Olivia Best, who is currently a post-bac student at Temple and is leading the wellness initiatives for the POHPS group. It is another short episode and is a continuation of our COVIDCast series highlighting the work of students, residents, and faculty to address the COVID pandemic. We discuss Olivia’s background, how she got involved with POHPS to organize events such as wellness happy hours, meditation sessions, Music on Call, and to share posts on a wellness blog. Check out the POHPS website to learn more.
Hosts: Ryan O'Keefe and Jonathan Wa...
2020-05-0813 min
The PennHealthX Podcast56 - COVIDCast #7 - Alexandra Myers and Elizabeth Volpicelli - Centralizing Volunteer OpportunitiesToday’s episode is a quick one Jonathan Wakim and I recorded with Alexandra Myers and Elizabeth Volpicelli, who are both 3rd-year medical students at Temple Medical School. They tell us about their involvement with the POHPS organization helping to centralize all of the volunteer opportunities for students to help out during the COVID pandemic.
We’ve included links to the spreadsheets the two have compiled in the show notes, but you call also find them on the POHPS website in the campaigns and initiatives tab at the top of the home page.
Footnotes
Alexandra’s LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in...
2020-05-0614 min
The PennHealthX Podcast55 - COVIDCast #6 - Dr. Danish Nagda Founder/CEO of Rezilient - Merging Telemedicine and RoboticsToday’s episode is a conversation I co-hosted with Maryam, one of the VP’s of Curriculum for Penn HealthX, and our guest, Dr. Danish Nagda. Dr. Nagda is the founder and CEO of Rezilient, an exciting telemedicine company.
From their website:
After speaking to countless physicians, they’ve heard the same rationale for the lack of adoption of current virtual care solutions for outpatient care: Doctors don’t see themselves consistently using telehealth because of the inability to perform their objective physical assessments through videoconferencing. We believe that this current gap between in-person and internet-based outpatient care can be addresse...
2020-05-0447 min
The PennHealthX Podcast54 - COVIDCast #5 - Dr. David Fajgenbaum - Repurposing Drugs in the Fight Against COVIDFor this episode, Jonathan Wakim and my fellow Co-President Logan Brock joined me to welcome back our very first guest on this podcast all the way back in 2017, Dr. David Fajgenbaum.
In the episode we hear about some of the major milestones and highlights of the last 3 years since we last spoke with Dr. Fajgenbaum. These include memories of successfully treating other Castleman patients with the drug sirolimus, the birth of his daughter Amelia at Pennsylvania Hospital, and publishing the book, Chasing My Cure.
We also discuss the decision to transition some of Dr. Fajgenbaum’s lab’s resources to stud...
2020-04-2935 min
The PennHealthX Podcast53 - COVIDCast #4 - Prototyping the SaniPack to Help Protect Frontline Healthcare WorkersThis episode is a continuation of our series of COVID-related content. Jonathan Wakim and I speak with the SaniPack team, consisting of Omar Abdoun, Khaled Abdoun, Lina Ibrahim, Ahmed Aly, Zonia Moore, and Doreen Lam.
Each of the team members is a student at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Doreen Lam is currently one of the VPs of Curriculum for Penn HealthX. Together, their group developed the Sanipack, a pouch that can rapidly decontaminate an N95 mask and enhance its usability and shelf life to help protect healthcare workers. HealthX actually provided some tiered, non-dilutive grant funding so that...
2020-04-2746 min
The PennHealthX Podcast52 - David Lindsay - Founding Oncora Medical and Leveraging RWE to Improve the Treatment of CancerToday’s episode is a conversation I had with David Lindsay, who is an MD/PhD student at Penn. He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Oncora Medical, which is a Philadelphia based company developing of a digital health platform intended to improve the way oncologists access, organize and learn from past radiation treatment data. The company's platform uses predictive analytics to unify data on radiation oncology, enabling oncologists to analyze the side effects, success and failure of past treatments and offer better treatment to cancer patients.
In the episode we talk about how he became interested in medicine, co...
2020-04-2552 min
The PennHealthX Podcast51 - COVIDCast #3 - Nicole Jochym - Co-Creator of Sew Face Masks Philadelphia (SFMP)Today’s episode is a quick one we recorded with Nicole Jochym to highlight the work she has done as the co-creator of Sew Face Masks Philadelphia (SFMP). Nicole is currently a 3rd-year medical student at Cooper Medical School just across the river from us in Camden, New Jersey. She holds a Masters of Bioethics from UPenn.
Be on the lookout for a lot more COVID content to be released soon, highlighting other work students, residents and faculty have been leading here in Philly and beyond.
Footnotes
Nicole’s LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolejochym/
SFMP Website
https://www.sewf...
2020-04-2309 min
The PennHealthX Podcast50 - COVIDCast #2 - Casey Kim - Developing Educational Guidelines and Daily COVIDigestsFor this episode, we are continuing our series featuring healthcare students and workers who are helping in the response to COVID-19.
I spoke with Casey Kim, who is a 3rd-year medical student. She is on the leadership board for POHPS, the Philadelphia Organization of Health Professions Students and has taken the lead on creating guidelines for both medical professionals and the public regarding COVID-19. She has also created CoviDigest which is a daily summary of news, announcements, and other takeaways regarding the coronavirus.
Be on the lookout for future COVID episodes where we speak with more of the POHPS leadership...
2020-04-1318 min
The PennHealthX Podcast49 - COVIDCast #1 - Ramie Fathy - Founding POHPS to Organize the Student Response to the PandemicPOHPS Website
www.pohps.org
Today, we are finally getting some COVID-related material. Over the next few weeks, we are going to continue highlighting some of the amazing work healthcare students and staff are doing in the Philadelphia area to help address the coronavirus pandemic.
First, we are sharing a conversation Wakim, a 1st year Penn Medical student and VP of Strategy for HealthX, and I had with Ramie Fathy. Ramie is a 3rd-year medical student at Penn. He is the founder of POHPS, which stands for the Philadelphia Organization of Health Professions Students (POHPS). POHPS is an independent student-driven...
2020-04-1039 min
The PennHealthX Podcast48 - Dr. Ravi Parikh - Using AI and Machine Learning to Improve Patient CareTodays episode is a conversation I had with Dr. Ravi Parikh who is a Heme/Onc fellow at Penn. He received his MD from Harvard and his MPP from the Kennedy School. He completed an internal medicine residency at the Brigham.
Dr. Parikh gave our first (and unfortunately probably only) in-person seminar series talk this semester. He spoke about Machine Learning in healthcare, some of the projects he is involved with to better identify patients who would benefit from having a “serious illness conversation” and the challenges of bias. He joined me to talk about this topic further.
In the epis...
2020-04-0752 min
The PennHealthX Podcast47 - Dr. James Buxton - From CT Surgery in the U.K to Studying Business at WhartonIn this episode, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. James Buxton – all the way from across the pond in London. James is an MBA colleague of mine and a physician from the U.K who was training to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.
In the episode we discuss how the coronavirus has impacted him these last few weeks and how he may soon be called to the frontlines in the U.K. We also discuss how we became interested in surgery, why he decided to get a business degree in the U.S, what he’s learned about the U.S...
2020-03-3147 min
The PennHealthX Podcast46 - Dr. Richard Baron - Pres/CEO of ABIM - Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in MedicineIn this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Richard Baron. Dr. Baron is currently the president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine, or ABIM. He received his MD from Yale and completed his internal medicine residency at NYU-Bellevue Medical Center. He served a 3-year obligation in the National Health Service Corps in rural Tennessee, practiced general internal medicine and geriatrics for almost 30 years at Greenhouse Internists, served as the CMO of Health Partners, a Medicaid HMO in Philadelphia, and was the Group Director of Seamless Care Models at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid...
2020-03-251h 08
The PennHealthX Podcast45 - Dr. David Nash - Population Health is Transforming the Healthcare SystemIn this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. David Nash. Dr. Nash is the Founding Dean of the Jefferson College of Population Health in Philadelphia. He completed his MD at the University of Rochester, and his internal medicine residency at Graduate Hospital of University of Pennsylvania. He was a RWJ Clinical scholar, and through this program completed an WBA with the Wharton School. He has been on faculty at Jefferson for nearly 30 years. He is widely regarded to be a “pioneer” in the world of population health, and he has many interests including health policy, quality and safe...
2020-03-1859 min
The PennHealthX Podcast44 – Dr. Justin Barad - Founder/CEO Osso VR - Using VR to Revolutionize Surgical TrainingWelcome to the Penn HealthX Podcast. For those who are new listeners, we seek to interview students, faculty, and leaders working at the intersection of business and medicine at Penn and beyond. Penn HealthX is a student run organization at the Perelman School of Medicine that organizes a speaker series, funds internships and startup companies, and hosts an annual conference, among other things. You can learn more at PennHealthX.com.
In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Justin Barad, the Founder and CEO of Osso VR. Osso VR is a validated fully immersive surgical training platform. Osso is an incredibly...
2020-03-0645 min
The PennHealthX Podcast43 - Elliot Stein - Starting Companies as a Medical StudentToday’s episode is a conversation I had with Elliot Stein while he was still a student here at Penn. Elliot had previously been involved with the leadership of HealthX, and, as you will see, interacted with just about every branch of HealthX during his time as a student.
Since then, he began a prelim year at Pennsylvania Hospital and will be completing a residency in Interventional Radiology at UCSF.
In the episode, we hit on his interest in IR, the Masters of Translational Research, or MTR, that Penn offers, his involvement with HealthX Labs, how he managed to co-found tw...
2020-02-1439 min
The PennHealthX Podcast42 - Neil Patel - Life Sciences Consulting, Masters of Translational Research (MTR), and ENTToday’s episode is one we recorded a while back with Neil Patel. At the time, Neil was the president of HealthX, with dreams of matching into ENT. He did just that, and is now an ENT resident at UCSF.
In the conversation, we discuss his time as an undergraduate at Penn in the Vagelos program, his experience as a life science consultant, his decision to pursue a master’s in translational research, and why he chose ENT.
2020-02-0729 min
The PennHealthX Podcast41 - John Bernabei - How Neurosurgeons Are Using Machine Learning to Treat EpilepsyThis episode is a discussion I had with a colleague of mine at Penn, John Bernabei. He is an MD/PhD student interested in neurosurgery and shared with us of some details about his research in applying machine learning to better understand and treat epilepsy. We talk about his time at Duke, how he became interested in both neuroscience and computer science, and we wrap up with a discussion about Black Fynn, an innovative company founded by his mentor Dr. Brian Litt to apply machine learning to better understand neurological diseases.
Keep an eye out for many more future episodes...
2020-01-3156 min
The PennHealthX PodcastUpdate: We’re Back! And We’re Funded! Thank You to All of Our Generous DonorsHello and welcome back to the Penn HealthX Podcast!
My name is Ryan O’Keefe, and I’m now a 4th year MD/MBA student at The Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School. I, along with occasional co-host Logan Brock, am also currently the co-president of Penn HealthX. Movin’ up in the world. We are incredibly excited for a new semester with a fresh board of HealthX Vice Presidents. You’ll be meeting a few of them soon!
I’m currently in my year out studying business – but don’t let anyone fool you, it’s not all fun and games. I...
2020-01-3102 min
The PennHealthX Podcast40 - JC Lopez - From Water Polo to Starting a Medical Device Company and Working for GenentechIn this episode, we speak with J.C Lopez who graduated from Penn Med last year, and now works in Business Development at Genentech. In the episode, we talk about water polo, learning how to be a leader, the experience and challenges of starting a medical device company as a medical student, the value of an MBA, interning for Genentech, the decision to forgo residency. For those who don’t know, the conversations we have for these episodes begin way before we hit record and go on long after we stop. In this case, I began talking with JC about ho...
2019-03-1749 min
The PennHealthX Podcast39 - Dr. Jacqui Soegaard - Clinical Informatics, The Road to Surgery, and Founding HealthXIn this episode Ryan and Neil are joined by Penn HealthX’s third and final founder, Jacqui Soegaard. Jacqui is currently a general surgery resident here at Penn. In the episode we discuss growing up in Puerto Rico, her time at MIT, her perspective on co-founding HealthX, how she ended up taking a year off to do a clinical informatics internship that she crafted, choosing surgery, things that have surprised her about being a resident, and some opportunities she is looking forward to in the future. Enjoy.
2019-03-061h 00
The PennHealthX Podcast38 - Dr. Diane Dao - The Path to Anesthesia, Founding HealthX, and Pursuing an MPHWe're back! In this episode we are back to our HealthX founders series, with Diane Dao. When this episode was recorded, she was in her first year of anesthesia residency here at Penn. In the conversation we talk about the role her parents had on her career trajectory and how she ended up choosing anesthesia, her decision to get an MPH, an article she wrote about cooking, and a bit more of the story of founding HealthX.
Diane's Kevin MD Article
https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/12/cooking-just-doctor-ordered.html
2019-03-0159 min
The PennHealthX Podcast37 - Dr. Dan O'Connor - How to Be a Student Entrepreneur, Founding HealthX, and Choosing DermatologyToday’s episode is one we recorded a long time ago with Dan O’Connor, one of the three founders of HealthX! Dan is now a dermatology resident at Harvard. In the episode, we chat about how he got interested in computer science, entrepreneurship, as well as some of his previous experiences as a medical scribe, an academic researcher, and founding a company to make the resident evaluation process more streamlined. His research uncovered some interesting findings focusing on gender bias in the evaluation process. We also chat about the process of founding HealthX, the goals of the program, and what...
2018-12-2352 min
The PennHealthX Podcast36 - Lizz Card and Joy Obayemi - Global Surgery Adventures in TanzaniaThis episode is one we recorded a while back with Lizz Card and Joy Obayemi who are also third year medical students. In it, we discuss the work they did in Tanzania at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, performing research with a focus on global surgery. First, we hear a little bit about each of their backgrounds, and then we jump into some of their projects, including looking into the repercussions medical bills have on mental health, and the role of traditional bone setters in the Tanzanian health system. We also discuss what it was like traveling to Africa, and...
2018-10-231h 07
The PennHealthX Podcast35 - Dr. Shivan Mehta Part 2 - Using Behavioral Economics to Improve HealthcareToday’s episode is Part 2 of a conversation Logan and I had with Dr. Shivan Mehta, who is the Associate Chief Innovation Officer at Penn Medicine. A gastroenterologist by training, Dr. Mehta is also the Director of Operations at the Penn Center for Healthcare Innovation, and works with the Leonard Davis Institute Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics. He received his MD, MBA and Masters in Health Policy all from Penn. We had a great conversation with topics ranging from his background, The Center for Healthcare Innovation, and behavioral economics research and how it can be used to improve pa...
2018-08-2121 min
The PennHealthX Podcast34 - Dr. Shivan Mehta Part 1 - Using Behavioral Economics to Improve HealthcareToday’s episode is Part 1 of a conversation Logan and I had with Dr. Shivan Mehta, who is the Associate Chief Innovation Officer at Penn Medicine. A gastroenterologist by training, Dr. Mehta is also the Director of Operations at the Penn Center for Healthcare Innovation, and works with the Leonard Davis Institute Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics. He received his MD, MBA and Masters in Health Policy all from Penn. We had a great conversation with topics ranging from his background, The Center for Healthcare Innovation, and behavioral economics research and how it can be used to improve pa...
2018-08-1321 min
The PennHealthX Podcast33 - Dr. Scott Trerotola - A Pioneering Career in IR, Hemodialysis, and Device InnovationIn this episode, I speak with Logan Brock, my occasional co-host, and Dr. Scott Trerotola who is the Chief of Interventional Radiology as well as Vice Chair for Quality and Safety at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Trerotola is a mentor to many medical students, and pursues research in hemodialysis and venous access among many other topics. Along with his surgical and academic work, Dr. Treretola is also an inventor, holding numerous patents for medical device – one of which, the Arrow-Trerotola Device, is still used across the country.
In the conversation, we hit on his time in me...
2018-07-0747 min
The PennHealthX Podcast32- Dr. Scott Manaker Part 2 - In Defense of the RUCIn Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Manaker, we discuss some of the common criticisms of the RUC, and why the group is structured the way it is. Long story short, it’s an imperfect group that was designed to most effectively do the otherwise overwhelmingly gargantuan task of determining the value of the procedures physicians bill for. For more background on the RUC and Dr. Manaker, check out Part 1.
https://soundcloud.com/pennhealthxpodcast/31-dr-scott-manaker-the-ruc-and-determining-how-much-physicians-get-paid
Dr. Scott Manaker is a an attending Pulmonary and Critical Care physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. I first heard about Dr. Ma...
2018-05-2428 min
The PennHealthX Podcast31 - Dr. Scott Manaker Part 1 - The RUC, and Determining How Much Physicians Get PaidToday’s episode is the first of a two part conversation I had with Dr. Scott Manaker, who is a an attending Pulmonary and Critical Care physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. I first heard about Dr. Manaker being at Penn when I fell down the rabbit hole researching a fascinating part of the U.S Healthcare system – a group called the Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee, or the “RUC” for short.
Dr. Manaker is a member of this group, and I felt really privileged to be able to sit down with him and pick his brai...
2018-04-2836 min
The PennHealthX Podcast30 - Internship Minisode - Christina Bax, Bringing Sight to Africa with Peek VisionThis episode is the final internship minisode with Christina Bax, who spent last summer working in Botswana with Peek Health, a company originally discussed on this podcast in one of our first episodes with Ryan Littman-Quinn. Christina talks about how she approached figuring out what to do over the summer, her role as a medical student with the Peek team, working with design students, and how she transitioned to living in Africa!
Links
Peek Vision
https://www.peekvision.org/
Upenn-Botswana Partnership
http://www.med.upenn.edu/botswana/
Episode with Ryan Littman-Quinn
https://soundcloud.com/pennhealthxpodcast/episode-3-ryan-littman-quinn-mhealth-and-botswana
2018-04-2118 min
The PennHealthX Podcast29 - Catherine Cullen - The Bioethics of Fetal MedicineThis episode is a follow-up to the discussion with Dr. Alan Flake on fetal medicine and the artificial womb project. I speak with my good friend, and Penn Med classmate, Catherine Cullen about bioethics, and what we should think about as we continue to push forward, innovating in the realm of fetal medicine. With the advent of genomics, gene editing, and gene therapies, these types of conversations are more important now than ever. If you haven’t had the chance to listen to our episode with Dr. Flake, you definitely don’t want to miss out!
Links
https://www.nytimes.com...
2018-04-1323 min
The PennHealthX Podcast28 - Dr. Alan Flake - The Artificial Womb and Innovation in Fetal MedicineToday we bring you a long-awaited, and incredibly special episode! This is an interview I, along with the new co-VP of curriculum for Penn HealthX, Raymond Liu, did with Dr. Alan Flake after he spoke at the Penn HealthX conference last semester.
Dr. Flake is an attending pediatric and fetal surgeon in the Division of Pediatric General, Thoracic and Fetal Surgery at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He serves as Director of CHOP’s Center for Fetal Research and is a professor of Surgery and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Today, he s...
2018-04-0836 min
The PennHealthX Podcast27 - Dr. Nisha Mehta Part 2 - Physician Side GigsPart 2! This episode is a conversation I had with Dr. Nisha Mehta, who is a Penn Med alum! She is currently a radiologist, writer, speaker, and physician advocate. Her writing has been featured in Forbes, PBS NewsHour, Doximity, and KevinMD, among many others. She writes and speaks on many topics in medicine, including physician burnout, work-life balance, wellness, and personal finance. She is also the founder of the Facebook group, Physician Side Gigs, where over 15,000 physicians share stories of how they pursue passion projects both in and out of clinical medicine.
I first heard Dr. Mehta when she was a...
2018-04-0626 min
The PennHealthX Podcast26 - Dr. Nisha Mehta Part 1 - What is Unique About Physician Burnout?This episode is a conversation I had with Dr. Nisha Mehta, who is a Penn Med alum! She is currently a radiologist, writer, speaker, and physician advocate. Her writing has been featured in Forbes, PBS NewsHour, Doximity, and KevinMD, among many others. She writes and speaks on many topics in medicine, including physician burnout, work-life balance, wellness, and personal finance. She is also the founder of the Facebook group, Physician Side Gigs, where over 15,000 physicians share stories of how they pursue passion projects both in and out of clinical medicine.
I first heard Dr. Mehta when she was a guest...
2018-04-0328 min
The PennHealthX Podcast25 - Internship Minisode - Nancy Liu, Patient Safety and Quality Improvement at UCSFToday’s minisode is an interview with another one of the HealthX summer internship funding recipients, and another fellow MS2, Nancy Liu. Nancy spent the summer at UCSF learning about methods used in patient safety and quality improvement work. She cold-called a number of research teams to see if they would be interested in having her join, knowing that she could secure outside funding. She was also able to participate in the Telluride Experience which is a conference for medical students and residents interested in patient safety.
We’ve put together these shorter minisodes focusing on past internship funding recipients, beca...
2018-02-1815 min
The PennHealthX Podcast24 - Internship Minisode - Alejandro Cazzulino - Private Equity and the Medical Device SpaceToday’s episode is a quick minisode with one of my fellow MS2s, Alejandro Cazzulino, or Cazz. We chatted a bit about his experience working for a private equity firm Healthpoint Capital, and one of their spinoffs, Innovahealth Partners that invests in medical device companies.
Cazz was able to secure this internship with the help of HealthX funding that is available every year for Penn Med students who are looking to take on some untraditional work in a HealthX-related field. Students who are interested should check out the website pennhealthx.com, or inquire with current HealthX leadership to find ou...
2018-02-1217 min
The PennHealthX Podcast23 - Emily Kramer-Golinkoff, How Non-Profits Are Fighting to Cure Cystic FibrosisToday’s episode is a conversation I had with Emily Kramer-Golinkoff, who spoke to Penn HealthX last semester about her experience as a patient with Cystic Fibrosis, and in founding Emily’s Entourage, a 501c3 that accelerates research for new treatments and a cure for CF. Since 2011, Emily’s Entourage has raised around $3 million, and has invested in research projects and start-up companies looking to develop drugs for rare missense mutations that cause CF.
Emily received her undergraduate degree and Masters in Bioethics from Penn, and since founing Emily’s Entourage has been named a White House Precision Medicine “Champion of Change”...
2018-02-0437 min
The PennHealthX Podcast22 - Dr. Jake Brenner, Thinking Like a Medical Entrepreneur, and Penn Health TechToday’s episode is a conversation I had with Dr. Jake Brenner, who is pulmonary and critical care physician at Penn who splits his time between clinical work, developing technologies in the lab, and founding companies to bring those technologies to market. He completed his MD/PhD at Stanford, and participated in their Stanford Biodesign Fellowship program. He was able to spin two separate companies out of his involvement with that program, and is currently working on another called RightAir.
In the episode, we hit on the Stanford Biodesign program, how to think like an entrepreneur, the companies he’s foun...
2018-01-2758 min
The PennHealthX Podcast21 - Justin Larkin, Co-Founding WellSheet to Improve the EHR ExperienceToday’s episode is a conversation I had a few months ago with Justin Larkin, who is a fellow Penn Med student. Justin is one of the co-founders, and current CMO of WellSheet, which is a start-up that is using machine learning to identify, prioritize, and visualize patient health data across electronic health records. This company was launched out of the Penn HealthX Labs incubator completion, and remains one of the programs greatest success stories. Now that I’ve started my clinical rotations and have been working with EHR’s, it’s so clear why we need innovation in this space –...
2018-01-201h 02
The PennHealthX Podcast20 - Dr. Ali Behbahani, Venture Capital and MedicineToday’s episode is a conversation that Logan recorded with Dr. Ali Behbahani when he was here for the Penn HealthX conference in December to lead a workshop on thinking like a Venture Capitalist. Ali’s story is especially interesting because he actually worked in the business and investment world before completing his MD/MBA dual degree at Penn, and then decided to go straight back into finance and investing when he graduated. This is obviously not common for someone who goes to medical school, and it’s interesting to hear what Ali thinks about the path he took, and how he...
2018-01-1335 min
The PennHealthX Podcast19 - Alastair Blake, The U.K Health System, and Consulting for McKinseyAlistair Blake is a British-trained physician who went to Cambridge. He performed his residency in London, and has worked as health policy fellow for the NHS. He is currently an MBA-student at Wharton, and plans on working full time after graduation with the consulting firm, McKinsey. After speaking for a HealthX event on campus, he joined us to dive a bit deeper into his thoughts on the U.S vs. the U.K health systems, and what he has learned as a physician who wants to transition into the business world.
Map
2:00 – Ali’s background and Education – growing up in Bradfo...
2018-01-0658 min
The PennHealthX Podcast18 - Dr. Patrick Brennan, The Role of a Chief Medical Officer(CMO), and Coaching in HealthcareFor our last episode of 2017, I hosted Dr. Patrick Brennan, the current Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS). We touch on Dr. Brennan’s passion for infectious disease, how he began to take on leadership roles in medicine – including those with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, and as an advisor to the CDC and Secretary of Health and Human Services – the role of a CMO at a large non-profit hospital, high-level coaching in healthcare, and advice for future healthcare leaders. It’s an episode packed with amazing takeaways and insights.
Map
2:30 – Dr. Brennan’s novelty ba...
2017-12-2958 min
The PennHealthX Podcast17 - Dr. Arthur Rubenstein, Leading a Struggling Hospital System to GreatnessIn this episode, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to sit down with one of the most successful and respected healthcare leaders out there, Dr. Arthur Rubenstein.
His accolades are too extensive to list in detail, but in short, Dr. Rubenstein is internationally known for his research achievements in endocrinology and diabetes, as well as for his role as the Dean of Penn’s Med School and as Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania Healthcare System (UPHS) in the early 2000’s.
We were able to touch on his upbringing and medical training in South Africa, how he f...
2017-12-141h 28
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 16 - NeuroFlow Co-Founders Chris Molaro and Adam Pardes - Mental Health and EntrepreneurshipIn this episode, Ryan sits down with Chris Molaro and Adam Pardes, the co-founders of the Philadelphia start-up NeuroFlow. NeuroFlow is a digital health software firm that uses advanced data analytics and machine learning algorithms on real-time biometric data to quantify stress, focus and relaxation for mental health.
Map
5:10 – The NeuroFlow Pitch – Chris
8:45 – Why Adam felt compelled to co-found NeuroFlow
10:05 – How did Chris and Adam meet? How did they come up with the idea for NeuroFlow?
14:45 – How did they have the courage to even start?
18:30 – How Chris and Adam complement each other as co-founders
20:45 – Creating “Values” for a company and ensuring everyone...
2017-12-1158 min
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 15 - Dr Neha Vapiwala, Radiation Oncology, and Leadership in MedicineIn this episode, I was able to sit down with Dr. Neha Vapiwala who is one of my mentors, and overall one of my absolute favorite people at Penn Med. She just began work as the new Assistant Dean of Student Affairs for the Perelman School of Medicine.
We touch on her time at Johns Hopkins where she studied biology and Hispanic studies, and even worked with Dr. Ben Carson! We then discussed her time at Penn Med, the decision to pursue radiation oncology, how she began to take on leadership roles in medicine, and her goals as the new...
2017-12-051h 10
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 14 - Aaron Bhole, Drug Pricing, and Orphan DrugsAaron Bhole is a first year med student at the Thomas Jefferson University Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Philadelphia. He is involved with a group at Jefferson called Physician Executive Leadership – or PEL – which is a HealthX like organization that focuses on developing future physician leaders.
We were able to hit on Aaron’s interest in the intersection of business and medicine, PEL, drug pricing, orphan drugs, and many other topics.
Register for the Penn HealthX conference happening THIS SUNDAY, December 2nd here:
http://pennhealthx.com/events/conference#Registration
Map
3:15 – Aaron’s time at Cornell, the 3+2 Program to get an MBA, and f...
2017-11-281h 05
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 13 - Dr. Saurabh Jha, Writing and Tweeting about Medicine, and the Future of RadiologyRyan is joined by Dr Saurabh Jha to discuss writing and tweeting as a physician, and how medical students can most effectively ease themselves into that world. We discuss a number of Dr. Jha's articles, touch briefly on the future of radiology, and learn about some of Dr. Jha's favorite writers.
Map
3:15 – coming to the U.S and choosing radiology
7:00 – when and why did he become interested in writing about the healthcare system and his first article on the Breast Density Law
10:30 – why share your thoughts publicly if there is a risk in the modern political climate, and how to even s...
2017-11-221h 00
The PennHealthX PodcastBONUS Episode 12 - Dr. Dana Kuhn, Combating HIV/AIDS, and Founding Patient Services Inc.On the most recent episode of the Penn HealthX Podcast, we were able to speak with Dr. Dana Kuhn. Dr. Kuhn shared his heartbreaking story of finding out he was infected with HIV after receiving treatment for hemophilia. He then unknowingly passed the virus on to his wife, who then died of AIDS-related pneumonia a few years later.
While taking time to recuperate with his children, Dr. Kuhn found work as a counselor for patients with chronic illnesses. He then turned to patient advocacy, first working on The Trail of AIDS, and fighting to push legislators to clean up the...
2017-11-081h 00
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 11 - Spectrum Scores, LGBTQ+ Health Disparities, and HealthX LabsIn this episode, Ryan is joined by the three founders of Spectrum Scores - Phil Williams, Naveen Jain, and Jun Jeon. We discuss how they came up with the idea for Spectrum Scores - a website dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ patients find competent healthcare providers who are able to address their unique healthcare needs - and the experience of getting it off the ground.
Map:
3:30 – October 11th – Releasing Spectrum Scores and National Coming Out Day
5:15 – Phil’s Background
7:00 – Naveen’s Background
9:00 – Jun’s Background
12:00 – forming their HealthX Labs team
15:45 – early ideas for their team
17:30 – coming up with the idea for Spectrum Scores
22:00...
2017-11-071h 02
The PennHealthX PodcastBONUS: Episode 10 - Nathan Dollinger and The Future of Healthcare PodcastIn this bonus episode of The Penn HealthX Podcast, we'd like to share a conversation host Ryan O'Keefe had with Nathan Dollinger, the host of The Future of Healthcare Podcast. Ryan and Nathan discuss why they started their podcasts, some of their favorite guests, and riff on some topics in healthcare that they are passionate about. If you enjoy The Penn HealthX Podcast, you'll love The Future of Healthcare. Thanks to Nathan for letting us share.
Rate the podcast!! Find us on iTunes here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-penn-healthx-podcast/id1271378904?mt=2
Learn how to rate on iTunes and...
2017-10-241h 33
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 9 - BA Sillah, Investing in Africa, and Getting an MBABA Sillah joins the Penn HealthX Podcast to discuss getting an MBA, and investing in healthcare in Africa.
3:00 – The MBA year at Wharton
7:30 – deciding not to go into residency
15:30 – rising interest in business in medicine
19:00 – working in Africa
26:00 – addressing problems unique to the healthcare systems of emerging countries
33:00 – the downside to charity care
38:40 – working for Excelsior and investing to benefit a community
Links
BA's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/barthalomew-sillah-5433b614/
King's Sierra Leone Partnership
http://kslp.org.uk/
Excelsior Group
http://excelsior-group.com/
Ghana National Health Insurance Website
http://www.nhis.gov.gh/
2017-10-1755 min
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 8 - Eric Heil, RightCare Solutions, Systems Engineering, and Reducing ReadmissionsEric Heil joins the Penn HealthX Podcast to discuss his career, passion for systems engineering, and experience founding, and eventually exiting, RIghtCare Solutions. RightCare, a company focused on reducing acute care hospital readmissions, was acquired by NaviHealth.
2:45 – growing up in Iowa
4:00 – going to Penn to play basketball
5:45 – playing in the NCAA tournament
7:15 – choosing to study engineering
8:45 – what is systems engineering?
10:15 – why focus on the healthcare space?
11:45 – other jobs Eric took on after graduating from Penn
17:00 – from VC to becoming an entrepreneur
22:00 – the idea to start RightCare
24:45 – rationale for getting an MBA
27:20 – what exactly did RightCare do, and what problems did it solve?
34:45 – cha...
2017-10-0352 min
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 7 - Tim Carlon, Physician Payment Models, and Getting an MBATim Carlon joins us to talk about his MBA year, and his interest in value-based care. We touch on ACO's, bundled payments, MACRA, and other fun acronyms like MIPS. If you plan on being a physician, you will undoubtedly be impacted by the shift to value-based care. Take notes.
4:45 – Tim’s interest in IR
6:10 – why get the MD/MBA?
14:45 – becoming interested in value-based care payment models
22:20 – explaining ACO’s
27:00 – how have ACO’s been doing?
30:45 – what can med students and young physicians bring to the table?
32:55 – bundled payments
36:00 – What is MACRA?
45:00 – should doctors be worried?
Links
Tim's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy...
2017-09-1956 min
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 6 - Gregg Khodorov and Julia Tartaglia, BEN and The Scientista FoundationGregg Khodorov and Julia Tartaglia, the co-presidents of the Biomedical Entrepreneurship Network (BEN) at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, join me to discuss their interests, BEN, and The Scientista Foundation.
Map:
4:00 – Gregg – getting the MBA before med school
7:11 – working for Pfizer
9:45 – undergrad at GW and deciding to go into medicine
12:15 – Julia’s path to medicine – studying human behavior, getting a post-bacc
15:45 – starting the Scientista Foundation
20:05 – barriers she faced, and barriers women face in STEM careers
24:00 – what does the Scientista Foundation do?
28:00 – BEN, the summit, and cross-disciplinary programs
37:00 – integrating business and innovation skills into medical school curriculum
45:00 – things Gregg and Julia are looking forw...
2017-07-2052 min
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 5 - Nora Becker, The ACA, Women's Health, and ContraceptivesNora Becker joins me to discuss her research on the ACA and it's effects on contraceptive usage.
Map:
5:15 – her time at Pomona and becoming interested in public health
7:15 – deferring acceptance to Penn’s MD/PhD program to work for the Obama Campaign
10:00 – doing research at Wharton and getting a PhD not in basic science
13:00 – the value in appreciating health policy these days and how quickly health policy news/narratives/discussions can change
17:45 – Nora’s research – How the ACA has impacted contraceptive usage
24:00 – does contraceptive use save insurers money?
28:00 – paying for care specific to women’s health
35:00 – does being a mother change perspective on th...
2017-07-201h 06
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 4 - Dr. Debbie Kelly, Leaving Clinical Practice for Industry, and Spark TherapeuticsDr. Debbie Kelly joins us to speak about her career, and the decision to leave clinical practice to work in pharma.
Map:
5:30 – finding ophthalmology
9:45 – things that she didn’t like about clinical practice
12:30 – learning about GSK, industry, and the options for MD’s
21:00 – shifting to Pharmacovigilance
28:30 – getting contacted by the headhunter and going to Spark
34:15 – mulling the decision to leave clinical practice
45:00 – choosing one path vs. the unknown
51:00 – finding work-life balance in medicine and in industry
54:30 – challenges of pioneering gene therapy development
Links:
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-kelly-47963922/
Pharmacovigilance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacovigilance
Spark Therapeutics
http://sparktx.com/
Lancelot...
2017-07-201h 00
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 3 - Ryan Littman-Quinn, mHealth, and BotswanaRyan Littman-Quinn tells us about how he became an mHealth expert, and the challenges of overseeing successful projects abroad in Botswana and other African countries.
Map:
5:20 – reaching out to click diagnostics and taking the job as graphic designer
8:20 – going to Botswana
14:00 – what is mHealth?
21:00 - working for the UPenn Botswana partnership
27:00 – Ryan’s first project – mLearning to support medical education
32:00 – challenges in mHealth projects and learning on the job
38:30 – Peak Vision
51:00 – Funding projects that are mix of entrepreneurship and non-profit
Links:
LinkedIn Profile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlittmanquinn/
The Botswana-UPenn Partnership
http://www.med.upenn.edu/botswana/
Andrew Bastawrous TED Talk
https...
2017-07-201h 02
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 2 - Dr. Kovarik and TeledermatologyDr. Kovarik tells us about her career, and how she became a leader in the teledermatology field.
Note: In the intro, I mistakenly said that the Accessderm Platform was rolled out both in Philly and Africa. It is a U.S only platform. Other local platforms are used in Africa.
Map:
5:22 - Finding Dermatology at Baylor
8:39 - The beginning of telederm
12:20 - Becoming a leader in the field
14:45 - Issues in Derm field – shortage, long wait times, etc. and how telederm helps solve them
22:00 - Barriers to the growth of teledermatology
37:30 - Aligning incentives
44:00 - Limitations of teledermatology
Links:
Dr. Ko...
2017-07-2049 min
The PennHealthX PodcastEpisode 1 - Dr. Fajgenbaum, Castleman Disease, and the CDCNWe kick off the Penn Health-X Podcast with Dr. Fajgenbaum!
Map
4:30 – football at Georgetown, his mother’s illness, and starting AMF
8:45 – getting to Penn Med and being diagnosed with Castleman Disease
13:40 – relapsing, and not being content with the state of research
17:20 – mentors, the orphan disease center, and starting the CDCN with an email
21:00 – getting the MBA and learning to manage a group of researchers
23:30 – learning to negotiate
24:50 – how biomedical research funding needs to change
31:00 – using the CDCN model for other orphan diseases
34:00 – thoughts on high drug prices, right-to-try legislation, and FDA regulation, and off-label use
39:55 – being compared to a Nobel Prize winner, and plan...
2017-02-2147 min