1. What are your key areas of interest and research?
My interest is in improving the global structure of wellbeing, health and social care. I was a GP trainee at Oxford until I founded Medic Creations, with the aim of emulating the achievements of Aneurin Bevan; creating a NHS for today and future generations but on a global scale.
My focus is on preventative care and the promotion of health and wellbeing through the use of technology, finding new ways to connect people - whether professionals or the public - to provide simple, continuous, connected, collaborative and secure healthcare that gives better healthcare outcomes at lower costs.
2. What are the major challenges in your field?
There are several. The healthcare industry is set up in a way where the incentive is not on prevention, but rather the cure – certainly in non-national healthcare setups. The commercial value of healthcare is many-fold the value of wellbeing. This needs to change.
In addition, the changing population demographic, with an aging population and the prevalence of many preventable and chronic conditions, is a considerable challenge to the sustainability of our current healthcare system.
A major challenge is managing health data in an era that’s witnessing an explosion in the number communication channels, although I believe it’s an area in which I can be a part of the solution. For example if we consider that 70-80% of clinicians admit they use unsecure messaging services within the NHS, 80% of clinicians will consult an online source prior to managing a case and 70% of patients ‘google’ symptoms, then you get a sense of the level of fragmentation that’s happening to our reference sources, see the need to support patients as they engage more in the management of their own health and the requirement to ensure that, as professionals, we protect our patients and their private information.
A final point I’d flag is that huge challenges stem from embedded, often multi-generationally learned behaviours. The profession needs to promote a psychological change that gives ownership and responsibility of health to the individual, rather than placing the clinician as a gatekeeper to people’s health.
3. What is your top management tip?
Radiate passion! Your passion should flow in the veins of your entire team, customers, partners and all other stakeholders.
4. What would you single out as a career highlight?
The biggest highlight for me has been each and every moment I have been thanked as a doctor by patients, relatives or colleagues for having a positive impact on their own or their loved one’s health. I cherish the cards, letters and colleague feedback I have had. I have taken joy in overcoming challenges and am thankful for all the opportunities given to me thus far. For me saving a life or having meaningful individual contact with patients, relatives and colleagues that makes a difference to their care is a highlight that never tires.
I’ve been involved in many areas of healthcare, and I consider this breadth of experience a strength and a highlight in itself. I’ve experience in health through a medical degree in a third-world country, then in the private sector, then a UK state hospital and also as a trainer to junior medics. I’ve also been involved in social care as a carer, an advisor, a patient and a loved one to a patient.
Now I’m leading a company developing technologies that will help re-imagine global health communities through shared experiences and knowledge to transform care. I’m looking forward to exploring the future potential to help enable many healthier, happier lives.
5. If you had not chosen this career path what do you think you would have become?
I can’t think of another career apart from my previous one as a GP. Every clinician plays a huge role and has a huge impact on people’s lives, so there’s really no other career path I can think of. I am still on the GMC and MCI Registers!6. What are your personal interests outside of work?
Squash, photography, travelling, theatre shows, jazz, live music and entertainment, cars, cooking, training, and learning.
7. Your favourite quote?
"Be Realistic. Demand the Impossible!" Che Guevara
