The Underdog Physician Podcast

In this episode of The Underdog Physician Podcast, host Dr. Anish Desai sits down with Dr. Anant Vinjamoori, MD, MBA—Chief Medical Officer at Hims, Founder of Next Generation Medicine, and former CMO of Modern Age. Dr. Vinjamoori traces his unconventional journey from systems biology bench research and a dual MD/MBA at Harvard to internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Rather than following traditional clinical tracks, he broke into healthtech as an early product manager at Virta Health, learning how to build, ship, and manage cross-functional stakeholders at scale. In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Vinjamoori breaks down the realities of pioneering direct-to-consumer longevity clinics, why clinical brand and value proposition trump "shiny object" test panels, the nuanced science and regulatory landscape of therapeutic peptides, and how physicians can evaluate advisory opportunities and leverage AI as an operating system.Key discussion takeaways:The Non-Traditional Clinical Path: Why transitioning from residency into entry-level healthtech product management taught him the critical operational and execution skills medical training skips.Building Modern Age: What it was like stepping into the CMO role of a venture-backed longevity pioneer, adopting the mindset of "strong views, held loosely," and avoiding the trap of physician imposter syndrome.The Longevity Trap: Why scaling longevity care fails when clinics rely on constellations of expensive tests and treatments without an articulated customer identity, clear brand message, or actionable delivery system.Peptide Therapeutics & Regulation: The cellular mechanisms of peptides (why they "speak the language of the cell" vs. blunt-force pharmaceuticals), the distinction between FDA-approved agents (e.g., GLP-1s, Tesamorelin, Sermorelin) and research-grade compounds, and the aftermath of the 2023 FDA compounding restrictions.Framework for Startup Advisory: How clinicians should evaluate advisory roles across three pillars—genuine personal interest, economic upside (balancing cash vs. equity and guarding clinical time), and trust/energy with the founding team.Next Generation Medicine Mentorship: How Dr. Vinjamoori is structuring clinical and business education, AI tooling, and peer networks to de-risk physician transitions into personalized and proactive care.

In this episode, we interview Scott Becker, founder of Becker’s Healthcare and Becker Business Media, about building an industry-leading healthcare media platform and lessons from interviewing thousands of executives. Scott describes starting with a newsletter and conferences as a convening network, then hiring a full-time team funded by his law practice, expanding from surgery centers into orthopedics, spine, and especially hospitals and health systems, and focusing deeply on a few core lines. He explains that enduring leaders are consistent, values-driven, and clear on their “why,” and advises physician entrepreneurs to be niche-, team-, and customer-centric and to build what customers need. Scott discusses major trends including AI’s cascading use cases, improved nurse workforce production, and nontraditional access to care such as GLP-1 prescribing. He offers a nuanced view of private equity, shares the origin of Building Great Businesses, and highlights resilience lessons, routines for deep work, and priorities around family and staying centered.00:00 Meet Scott Becker01:18 How Beckers Started03:13 Scaling With Great People05:38 Traits Of Enduring Leaders09:01 Physician Entrepreneur Playbook12:33 Next Decade In Healthcare18:26 Private Equity In Medicine21:55 Writing Building Great Businesses25:45 Setbacks And Resilience Lessons30:22 Work Life Portfolio32:43 Morning Routine Deep Work35:27 Legacy And Closing Thoughts

On the Underdog Physician podcast, Dr. Carl Smart, a pulmonary and critical care specialist in Charlotte, North Carolina, discusses his journey from being born in Jamaica to studying chemistry at Fordham, attending Temple for medical school, and choosing pulmonary/critical care after reading CHEST and being drawn to ICU innovation and procedures. He explains how private-practice exposure to business plans and the rise of HMOs and corporate medicine led him to start a hospitalist program in the mid-1990s and pursue an MBA at Wake Forest to better understand finance and operations. Smart shares operational lessons on efficiency (including “just-in-time” concepts), his view that generative AI will transform the healthcare value chain while raising job-displacement and regulatory/ethical concerns, and the origins and thesis of Black Pearl Global Investment focused on affordability, access, and outcomes. He emphasizes founder tenacity, strong teams, realistic goals, and learning from failure, describes his intensive daily schedule across clinical and VC work, and outlines a legacy centered on scalable patient impact.00:00 Guest Introduction00:35 Redoing the Intro02:20 Carl’s Origin Story03:27 Why Pulmonary Critical Care04:50 Path to Business Leadership08:14 Why Get an MBA10:13 Operational Efficiency Lessons12:04 Generative AI in Healthcare15:45 Black Pearl Global Investment Thesis18:29 What VCs Look For21:15 Founder Advice and AI Reality23:13 Embracing Failure24:47 Work Life Integration26:13 Staying Calm Under Pressure28:00 Legacy and Closing

On the Underdog Physician podcast, we interview Dr. Timothy Martens, a congenital cardiothoracic surgeon and venture partner, and Alex Tang, a clinical strategy and innovation leader, about their work at Vaark Ventures supporting clinician-led early-stage healthcare startups. Tim recounts shifting from neuroscience and an interest in neurosurgery to cardiac surgery, then gaining commercialization and FDA exposure through stem cell and tissue engineering research at Columbia, later forming Vaark Ventures as a venture studio that evolved into an active angel syndicate with a diverse membership of clinicians, operators, and technical experts. Alex describes moving from clinical practice into administrative and value-based care roles, building practice models, and bringing payer and revenue-cycle perspective to investing. They outline a thesis focused on solving real “pain points” in healthcare, warn against superficial AI buzzwords, emphasize measurable ROI and workflow solutions, and advise founders on timing, committed teams, validated paid pilots, distribution channels, LOIs, and respectful relationship-building. They also discuss value-based care scaling, mentorship, and using disciplined calendar management.00:00 Welcome and Guests01:55 Tim Martins Origin02:58 From Lab to Venture05:20 Building Vaark Ventures Network06:42 Alex Tang Journey09:59 Investment Thesis13:14 AI and VC Trends16:42 Founder Advice19:50 Value Based Care Playbook26:06 Go To Market Strategy30:44 Work Life Integration32:03 Mentorship and Integrity34:59 Legacy and Closing

Ewelina discusses FinalSpark’s focus on transparency and science communication, including a live lab view on finalspark.com, to reduce fear and resistance to new technology. She explains the advantages of bootstrapping—control and founder freedom—while noting its limits, as FinalSpark currently has a six-person team and is talking to investors, seeking 50 million Swiss francs mainly to hire highly skilled people. She clarifies she is not the founder; the founders are Swiss entrepreneurs Fred Jordan and Martin Kutter, who started the company in 2014 and initially pursued digital AI research but pivoted due to the high energy and server costs, choosing living neurons for energy efficiency. She advises being selective about events, describes an open, idea-friendly leadership style shaped partly by cultural lessons from the Netherlands and UK, outlines her remote, meeting-batched work routine, and recommends scientists entering entrepreneurship learn psychology.00:00 Lab Transparency Tour19:13 Why Clarity Matters19:40 Bootstrapping vs Investors21:08 Founders and Early Vision21:46 Energy Problem to Neurons22:38 Networking and Events23:40 Leadership Across Cultures25:26 Remote Work Routine27:10 Advice for STEM Founders27:55 Closure

On the Underdog Physician podcast, Dr. Jalees Razavi, an occupational and environmental medicine specialist and author of The Anatomy of Burnout, shares how the Bhopal gas disaster inspired his career and training in Canada at the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto. He recounts leading occupational health efforts at Saudi Aramco, including a firefighter wellness program focused on nutrition, exercise, and heat tolerance, and later serving as executive director for Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil in Canada before consulting for companies and workers’ compensation boards. As current Vice Chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada’s Specialty Committee in Occupational Medicine, he explains the team-based strategy, communication, and external review process that achieved approval for occupational medicine to become a full Royal College specialty by 2027. He argues burnout is an organizational dose-response phenomenon often misidentified as depression, critiques superficial wellness programs, and describes his own routines, views on supplements and longevity, and the legacy of fairness and integrity he hopes to leave.00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro01:42 Bhopal Disaster Spark02:58 Training in Canada04:08 Saudi Aramco Leadership06:18 Back to Canada Career07:02 Royal College Specialty Push14:35 Burnout Misunderstood19:24 Daily Routine and Focus21:56 Supplements and Longevity25:06 Legacy and Next Book26:03 How to Connect and Closinghttps://www.razavioccmed.com/about

In this Underdog Physician podcast episode, Anish interviews physician executive Dr. Aamir Rehman, CEO of Act Health and Vyzr Health, about his career across consulting, health systems, employers, payers, and digital health. Dr. Rehman shares his origin story—born in Pakistan, trained in medicine, then recruited into consulting in the late 1990s—describing how physician problem-solving skills translate to business and why he took early career risks to influence healthcare decisions. He discusses when an MBA can help, emphasizing individualized goals and the value of formal training and networking. The conversation covers AI’s potential and current limitations (including hallucinations), lessons from telehealth adoption, payer incentives as costs shift, and skepticism about longevity medicine due to murky science. He describes early-stage startup life, managing mental bandwidth, and his legacy goal: reducing patient stress through better navigation and “connecting the dots” after diagnoses.00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro01:13 Origin Story and Early Career02:48 Consulting Leap and Lessons05:18 Healthcare Verticals and Entrepreneurship09:10 Risk Taking for Physicians11:49 Do You Need an MBA15:53 AI in Healthcare Reality Check23:07 Payers and AI Reimbursement26:13 Wellness and Longevity Clinics29:06 Startup CEO Life and Workload32:10 Stress Management and Mental Bandwidth34:52 Legacy Patient Empowerment Mission37:27 Closing Thanks and Wrap Up

On the Underdog Physician podcast, host interviews Eric Miller, co-founder and chief financial advisor of Econologics Financial Advisors, LLC, who has helped more than 50 healthcare practice owners transition their businesses and oversees over $250 million in assets. Miller shares why he started a financial planning firm in 2008 to serve healthcare professionals and argues financial outcomes are mostly an “inside job” driven by habits and basic systems. He highlights key blind spots like not deciding where money goes before it arrives, and explains his philosophy of treating the household as a “parent company” that manages all assets, with the practice often being the biggest investment. He outlines a three-step framework—clean up, set up, grow up—discusses building multiple income streams sequentially, warns against relying solely on qualified retirement plans, and advises setting aside a fixed percentage for investments. He covers partnership/team considerations, practice exit readiness (emotional and financial), what drives practice value, private equity trends, delegating to scale, and directs listeners to a free financial assessment at econologics.com.00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro00:44 Eric’s 2008 Origin Story01:55 Money Mindset and Habits02:48 Physician Money Blind Spots04:31 Household as Parent Company06:44 Clean Up Set Up Grow Up08:08 Building Multiple Income Streams09:51 Beyond the 401k Playbook11:48 Financial Beast Book Lessons13:56 Partnerships and Team Building15:45 Delegation and Mentorship18:06 Practice Exit Strategy Basics20:00 Who’s Buying Practices Now21:41 Hot Sectors and PE Targets22:58 Work Life Integration Today24:20 Legacy and Industry Impact25:30 How to Connect and Wrap Upwww.econologicsfinancialadvisors.com

On the Underdog Physician podcast, host Anish interviews Dr. Mohit Joshipura, a dual board-certified internal medicine and obesity medicine physician and chief medical officer at OpenLoop, about his path from traditional outpatient practice in Dallas–Fort Worth (including experience after an Optum acquisition) to digital health leadership. Mohit describes early telemedicine exposure, then leading Oscar Health’s mid-2020 rollout of hybrid in-person/virtual care across multiple states during COVID, emphasizing cross-functional collaboration. He shares a framework for digital health leaders: clinical integrity, operational efficiency, and business profitability, with clinical integrity as non-negotiable, and advises clinicians to treat interviews as two-way culture assessments. For physicians interested in advising or investing, he recommends first working as a telemedicine clinician and learning licensure, credentialing, modalities, regulations, and controlled-substance considerations. He discusses telemedicine’s future adoption, reimbursement uncertainty, AI’s shift from generative to agentic workflows, startup success factors, work-life tradeoffs, licensure strategy including IMLCC, and his desired impact expanding virtual care responsibly.00:00 Introduction and Welcome01:17 Origin Story04:10 Transition to Digital Health06:44 Mindset Shifts for Physicians09:18 Balancing Clinical and Business12:44 Getting Started in Health Tech15:43 Future of Telemedicine19:24 AI in Healthcare21:33 Startup Success Factors24:14 Work Life Integration28:05 50 State Licensure Strategy30:57 Legacy and Final Thoughts

On the Underdog Physician podcast, Dr. Eve Cunningham, MD, MBA, shares her path from Arizona to OBGYN training at Kaiser, faculty at UCLA, and nearly two decades in health systems leadership, including serving as chief medical officer for a 350-clinician Providence medical group. Frustrated by poor tech fit, she pushed into Providence corporate development, helped evaluate vendors and expand virtual care programs, and incubated MedPearl, a Providence-built clinical decision support platform that unifies patient chart data with guidelines and pathways to streamline care and referrals. She later brought Cadence to Providence and now serves as Cadence’s CMO, describing how scalable remote patient monitoring requires tech plus clinical services to manage alerts and integrate workflows, and noting the need to reduce barriers to digital innovation amid access and workforce crises.00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro00:49 Origin Story and OBGYN Path01:50 Kaiser Training and Early Career03:36 Leadership Rise and MBA Journey05:08 Providence CMO to Tech Pivot06:36 COVID Virtual Care and MedPearl Idea08:21 Telehealth Portfolio and Cadence Partnership12:56 Mentorship and Career Guidance16:36 Is an MBA Worth It18:38 Finding Purpose and Reinvention21:57 Inside MedPearl Clinical AI Platform25:28 Digital Health Startup Mistakes29:58 Regulation AI and Access Crisis32:07 Startup Life and Rapid Innovation34:31 Legacy and Final Advice