High Impact Medicine Podcast
By High Impact Medicine
High Impact Medicine PodcastMay 08, 2024
Dr Yassen Tcholakov - Public Health and Health Diplomacy
Dr Yassen Tcholakov is a Canadian doctor and the Clinical Lead in Infectious Disease at the Nunavik Department of Public Health in Canada. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and Public Health at McGill University, and he also currently serves on the Steering Committee of the WHO Youth Council. He has varied advocacy experience in representing organisations like the WHO, World Medical Association, and the International Federation of Medical Students Associations in front of the United Nations.
In this episode we discuss:
What health advocacy and diplomacy means
The diverse nature of a career in public health
Skills/ prerequisites for public health careers
Yassen’s recommendations:
Dr Ian Nesbitt - Dispatches From a War Doctor
Dr Ian Nesbitt is a consultant in anaesthesia and critical care. He has carried out life-saving treatments in some of the most challenging conditions with none of the resources typically available in a UK hospital. Having completed medical school at Newcastle Upon Tyne University, he then trained in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. He has volunteered in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones, deployed to the Middle East in 2003 and carried out two tours of duty in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2010.
We discuss:
How to get into humanitarian medicine as a medical student - how to fund and make time for this
The realities of working in war zones and the varied nature of the work
Managing the perceptions of the local populations and working towards sustainability
And much more!
Links mentioned:
Dr Aakash Ganju - Digital Health Solutions
Dr Aakash Ganju is a healthcare entrepreneur from India, after completing his medical degree he went on to co-found Saathhealth, an impact-focused digital health company that leverages evidence-based preventive health and financial literacy content to generate awareness, engage with users and drive demand for health products and services. To date, Saathealth has already engaged more than 50 million people in India and in several other countries across southeast and central Asia. He is the author of ‘A Glass Half Full: Stirring Healthcare Conversations for a Better Future’
We discussed some interesting points:
- The value of good mentorship in guiding your career
- The importance of shared-decision making in the delivery of medical care
- The value of inter-disciplinary ideas in fueling innovation
- To celebrate and enjoy the uncertainty!
Note: unfortunately the audio quality of our guest is not ideal (virtual interviewing challenges) nonetheless, I hope you find the content of the discussion as insightful and valuable as I did!
Show notes:
The Citadel - Book by A. J. Cronin
First published in 1937, this book was groundbreaking in its treatment of the contentious theme of medical ethics. It has been credited with laying the foundation in Britain for the introduction of the NHS a decade later.
Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8000-Metre Peak Book by Maurice Herzog
Book by a French climber about the first expedition to summit and return Annapurna, a mountain in the Himalayas - a classic of mountaineering literature.
Dr Adrian Boyle - Emergency Medicine & Health Policy
Dr Adrian Boyle is an Emergency Medicine Consultant at Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge, UK. His research interests are about using health data to prevent intentional injury and reducing the harm of Emergency Department crowding. He is also President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and a member of the Q community.
Resources mentioned in the interview:
1) Professor Jonathan Shepherd - who's field experiments and advocacy on glass injury resulted in a switch to toughened glassware and polycarbonate and plasticware in the UK licensed trade. His information sharing "Cardiff Model" for violence prevention inspired Dr Boyle's own work in Cambridge.
Dr Maximilian Schons - Clinical Science & Entrepreneurship
Max Schons is a clinician-scientist, developer, and entrepreneur. He currently leads the clinical team at the biotechnology startup Alvea. We discuss:
-The importance of showing a proactive mindset and building rapport.
-The value of a computer engineering mindset in your mental toolbox.
- Max's "buffet of hacks" for young professional, which includes finding kick-ass leadership & utilising our beloved Anki!
Dr Dan Epstein - Organisational Decision Making & "The Long Game Project"
Dan Epstein is a Medical Doctor and an academic with a PhD from Monash University’s faculty of public health. His areas of expertise include Decision Making | Behavior Change | Tabletop Game Design | Behavioral Economics | Pandemic Prevention | Forecasting | Philanthropy.
His previous lives included being an academic consultant across public and private sectors, a medical educator, amateur forecaster and a high performance athlete.
Dan has been designing tabletop games for 10 years and has been playing Dungeons and Dragons since he was 11. At Long Game Project, he is the Director of the core team strategy and game design.
1) Check out: https://www.longgameproject.org/
Get in touch with Dan on twitter
Anna Christina Thorsheim - Family Empowerment Media (FEM) & Entrepreneurship
Anna Christina is an ambitious and impact-driven entrepreneur with a commitment to evidence-based decision-making and a passion for improving health and well-being. She first became aware of the impact misinformation has on agency and maternal health in 2016 while researching the socio-cultural barriers to family planning uptake in rural Tanzania and has dedicated her work to solving this problem since. Before starting FEM, she co-founded a health-tech startup developing VR-based phobia treatment and worked as Head of PR at a startup incubator for for-profits aiming to achieve SDGs. Anna Christina studied Industrial Economics and Technology Management at NTNU, where she specialised in computer science, AI, and applied optimisation.
Dr Anju Goel - Public Health & Life Design
Dr Anju Goel is an experienced board-certified internist and public health specialist with MPH. Over 2 years at CDC on COVID-19 response and 10+ years in California public health system addressing communicable disease, health policy, health promotion, disaster preparedness, and correctional health. She's has a strong interest in public health and is an advocate for designing your life to suit your strengths and values.
Some resources from our conversation:
1) The Life for a Child Programme is an international aid program which supports children and young people with diabetes in under-resourced communities by providing them with essential life-saving support and supplies. https://lifeforachild.org/
2) DAFNE is an educational course for managing type 1 diabetes, giving diabetic patients the necessary skills to administer the right amount of insulin for the amount of carbohydrate you choose to eat. DAFNE stands for Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating. https://dafne.nhs.uk/
3) Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). https://www.cdc.gov/
4) Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders. https://www.msf.org/
5) PeaceCorps - Advancing Health Professionals (AHP) program. https://www.peacecorps.gov/volunteer/peace-corps-response/advancing-health-professionals/
6) Operation Smile. https://www.operationsmile.org.uk/
7) "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans - https://designingyour.life/
8) "Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work " book by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Dr Nadia Montazeri - Community Building & Effective Altruism
Today’s conversation is with Nadia Montazeri, who completed her medical school in Bonn, after which she worked as a psychiatry resident in Bern, Switzerland. Subsequently, she held the role of program director at Effective Altruism Switzerland. Effective Altruism (EA) is an organisation that uses evidence and reason to figure out how to most effectively make the world a better place. As part of her role, she coordinated the strategy for EA movement building in Switzerland.
We discuss:
- the transferable skills she got from her medical training;
- the intricacies of community building; and
- the importance of finding a topic area (or aptitude) about which you develop shower thoughts.
I really enjoyed this conversation, so I hope you do too.
Show notes:
1) Scott Alexander - "SHOULD YOU REVERSE ANY ADVICE YOU HEAR?"
2) Holden Karnofsky - "My current impression on career choice for longtermists"
Dr David Bassett - Consulting & Healthcare
After finishing medical school in New Zealand, David Basset shifted his career towards consulting, with roles at EY and BCG, before returning to train in radiology.
He shares some advice that would be useful for doctors and medical students, who are trying to figure out whether consulting would be a good fit for them. We discuss the benefits of combining business experience with clinic expertise.
Resources
- 80,000 Hours Career Guide - find out more here
Recommendations
- "Case in Point: Complete Case Interview Preparation", Book by Marc Cosentino
Dr Hunter Lau - Emergency Medicine
Today’s conversation is with Hunter Lau, who is an emergency medicine resident at Strong Memorial Hospital, and the group founder for Effective Altruism Medicine. We discuss some interesting points; for example, how focusing on impact can lead to unhappiness, the consequences of sub-optimal incentives in the medical education and the ways in which the typical medical student can stay resilient in working towards their long term goals. I hope you enjoy.
Resources
- "Medicine + Effective Altruism How can we do good, better?" webinar hosted by Giving What We Can - watch it at this link
Recommendations
- Books by Atul Gawande
Dr Akhil Bansal - High Impact Policy & Charity Entrepreneurship
Dr Akhil Bansal is a doctor who has worked with mental health NGOs, as a research fellow at Stanford Existential Risk Initiative and has recently joined Charity Entrepreneurship as an analyst. He is passionate about doing research that makes a difference and is developing his career to include both policy and clinical practice.
We discuss his experience with:
• building resilience into healthcare systems;
• developing a network and seeking valuable conversations;
• being a conduit between policy makers and clinicians on the ground;
• and much more!
Links: https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/
Dr Jake Mann - Clinical & High Impact Research
Dr Jake Mann is a clinical paediatrics registrar with research specialisation in metabolism and liver disease. He studied at Birmingham medical school and currently trains in Cambridge where he is a Wellcome Trust clinical fellow. He has a strong interest in clinical research and high impact research focuses for doctors and we were really excited to chat to him about his work as well as balancing clinical work with research.
Resources
- Effective Altruism - a social movement and philosophy focused on maximising the good you can do in your career, projects, and other life decisions - find out more here
- Giving What We Can - a community of effective givers - find out more here
Recommendations
- Review Articles e.g. Nature, Journal of Clinical Investigation
- Books by Ben Goldacre
Dr Henry Howard - Effective Giving & Clinical Medicine
Dr Henry Howard is a junior doctor in Australia who donated 50% of his income in 2021 to charity. He has pledged to give 10% of his income to effective charities forever having taken the Giving What We Can Pledge. He’s also really interested in Medtech and entrepreneurship. We’ve really enjoyed talking to him about his career, effective giving and his thoughts on doctors' ability to do a huge amount of good through donating to charity.
Resources and referenced materials
- Giving What We Can - Organisation - see here
- Drowning Child Thought Experiment - Peter Singer - see here for a summary written by The Life You Can Save
- How Rich Am I Calculator - resource from GWWC - see here to try it
- GiveWell - organisation - see here
- The Life You Can Save - organisation - see here (and you can find out more about the book by Peter Singer at the same link)
Dr Jan Brauner - AI in Medicine & Clinical Research
Dr Jan Brauner is a PhD candidate in the Centre for Doctoral Training on Intelligent and Autonomous Machines and Systems (AIMS CDT), and a member of the Future of Humanity Institute DPhil Scholars program. His current research interests include AI safety, applications of AI in medicine and biomedical research, and clinical research on cognitive enhancement. Before his DPhil, Jan studied medicine in Germany and worked as a research assistant in neuroscience, immunology and global health. We were really excited to chat to him about his work in AI and machine learning in Medicine, clinical trials and more!
Resources:
Dr Alastair Yeoh - Humanitarian Medicine & Global Health
Dr Alastair Yeoh is a Junior Doctor in the UK who recently returned from working in Ethiopia with Medicins Sans Frontieres. He also worked in Zambia and is looked to pursue a career in infectious diseases and global health. He’s also passionate about effective giving, having taken the GWWC pledge in 2019 and currently donates 20% of his income after tax to effective charities. We really enjoyed talking to him about his career and his thoughts on impact in medicine.
Resources & referenced materials
- Giving What We Can - Organisation - see here
- Médecins sans frontières (MSF) - Organisation - see here
- Volunteer Global Health - Organisation - see here
- An Imperfect Offering, James Orbinski - book
- Band Aid for a Broken Leg - Damien Brown - book
- Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill - Matthieu Ricard - book
Dr Chris Lovejoy - MedTech Entrepreneurship & Machine Learning
Dr Chris Lovejoy is a data scientist and medical doctor in London, passionate about scalable impact through technology and education. Currently, he is in the early stages of starting his own company, backed by Entrepreneur First. He is also a guest lecturer at teaching assistant in machine learning at UCL. We were really excited to talk to him about the potential for impact in medicine through technology and tech entrepreneurship as well through machine learning and data science.
Referenced material
- Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries - Peter Sims - book
- Machine Learning by Stanford - Andrew Ng - on Coursera here
- Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future - Topol Review - see here
- Do You Feel Like You Wasted All That Training? Answers About Transitioning to Non-Clinical Careers for Physicians - Michael J. McLaughlin - book
- Dr Chris Lovejoy's Youtube Channel - see here
- Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again - Eric Topol - book
- CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python - Harvard - course see here
Dr Lucia Coulter - Charity Entrepreneurship & Global Health
Dr Lucia Coulter is a clinical doctor turned charity founder! After completing medical school in Cambridge, she worked as Junior Doctor. Over a year ago she co-founded the Lead Exposure Elimination Project, LEEP, a non profit working to reduce lead exposure via lead based based. She is currently the co-director of LEEP. We were really excited to chat to Lucia about her experiences founding a not-for-profit, charity entrepreneurship and global health!
Links referenced in the podcast
- Charity Entrepreneurship
- Peter Singer, Famine Affluence and Morality
- Probably Good, Non-profit Entrepreneurship
- Unicef, The Toxic Truth
- Rethink Priorities, global lead exposure report
- Vox, Nearly half the world’s kids are exposed to dangerous levels of lead