Health Tech, Human Touch

 

How Justin Barad brought together his skills as a surgeon with his passion for gaming to become an innovator in healthcare tech, democratize access to modern surgical techniques, and improve human experiences.

 

Episode Notes

While practicing as an orthopedic surgeon, Justin Barad asked himself: With 1.1 million surgeons around the world, doing 310 million procedures a year—what if every single one of them was able to improve their performance by 200 or 300%?

In his talk with Jesse, Justin describes how his love of video games and his medical expertise led him to develop Osso VR, which combines virtual reality technology and training to give surgeons a faster, more accessible route to mastering some of the world’s most complex procedures. You’ll hear about the transformative impact that Osso VR is having on the world of medicine today. Justin also shares his thoughts on how art can and should influence science, why we need to rethink how we educate doctors in order to address a growing skills gap, and, for lighter fare—he reveals his favorite slice of pizza in the US.

(4:01) How Justin got hooked on video gaming

(7:23) Discovering that not all physicians take a single-minded approach to their work

(12:32) How Justin’s pathways into medicine and tech converged with the development of Osso VR

(20:28) Measuring the impact and improving the experience of Osso VR technology and training

(27:49) Why we might see more MBA + MDs in the near future

(30:59) How to pursue what you’re passionate about

(32:04) Exploring life journeys, and the search for the perfect pizza slice

Guest Bio

Justin is a board-eligible orthopedic surgeon with a Bioengineering degree from UC Berkeley, and an MD from UCLA. Originally interning to become a game developer at Activision-Blizzard, he co-founded Osso VR with a mission to improve patient safety and democratize access to modern surgical techniques.

Justin has spoken at multiple conferences including TEDMED, CES, Exponential Medicine, and Health 2.0. He also currently serves as a member of the Consumer Technology Association’s Health Technology Division Board of Directors. He currently resides in sunny Northern California with his two Great Danes. In his free time, you can find him enthusiastically singing karaoke and searching for the perfect slice of pizza.

Helpful Links

+ Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Justin Barad: We have almost 200 different training modules on the platforms, the world's largest VR healthcare company. But we want to get this to everyone. So who's everyone? They're 1.1 million surgeons around the world doing 310 million procedures a year. Imagine every single one of those is improving their performance 200 to 300%. That is just really rarely seen outside of the introduction of new vaccines or new therapeutic categories like antibiotics. And, what's wild about the whole thing is it uses video game technology. And so it's like this opportunity to completely transform healthcare delivery, our health, the cost of healthcare using video game tech. It's wild when you think about it. And it's something that I just find so exciting that it's all I want to do every day of my life. And I want to get this everybody because it will just completely change every aspect of how we think about healthcare in today's day and age.

[00:01:06] Jesse Purewal: From Qualtric Studios, this is Breakthrough Builders. A series of conversations with people whose passions, perspectives, instincts, and ideas fuel some of the world's most amazing products, brands, and experiences.

Today I had the pleasure of talking with a guest who's a one time video game designer who followed his strengths and passions to become a physician and a tech founder and entrepreneur. That guest is Justin Barad. Justin is an orthopedic surgeon and he's the founder and CEO of Osso VR, a virtual reality based surgical training and learning platform used by med device companies and healthcare pros around the world.

Early in his career Justin noticed an alarming gap between increasingly complex surgical procedures and the lack of physician capability to pull them off. With his passion for tech and some old bar mitzvah savings, he found himself uniquely positioned to solve this existential problem that he saw affecting millions of practitioners and patients. Justin is not only helping scale surgical confidence to meet this pressing problem. He's also an advocate for changing the way we look at traditional medical education and he's encouraging more doctors to venture off the beaten path and into the world of tech, business and entrepreneurship. He's humble. He's fun. He's smart. He's insightful. And he's got to laugh that you'll hit rewind on for days.

Justin and I started off talking about how growing up in LA sparked his desire to become a creator.

[00:02:38] Justin Barad: I grew up in west Los Angeles, like in the Westwood area. I went to Harvard-Westlake for high school and it was a pretty great place to grow up. Great weather. A lot of my life was the entertainment industry growing up, it's just a big thing down there. My dad is a film producer, my mom's in the toy industry. And I remember growing up really admiring the ability to sort of not just entertain people or make them laugh, but to inspire people with how you talk or how you act. I was not like that growing up. I was very much really introverted, surprisingly, and kind of like a huge nerd. I didn't go outside very much and painting a really pretty picture of myself. I was very much into technology and especially video games and spent a lot of my time playing video games and eventually teaching myself how to make them, working to get positions at Activision and other technology companies while I was in high school. So, that was what my passion really was at that point in my life and the career that I was really gunning for.

In retrospect, I think growing up around all of that had a huge influence on me, especially I think with the emphasis on wanting to tell stories and to be engaging and to inspire people but I didn't realize it at the time.

[00:03:52] Jesse Purewal: What was it about gaming that hooked you early on? And was it this kind of marriage of what your dad was doing in the film industry and your mom in the toy industry? Or was it more nuanced than that?

[00:04:01] Justin Barad: That's a really good question. I think for me I had a really active imagination and I was very creative and I think video games for me were a way to explore that. I really liked games that had stories and characters and I wanted to like experience that and it was really fun for me. Growing up I didn't feel like I was good at a lot of things but I was good at video games. So it was like fun to like perform and be good at something that was like kind of technical. So, there was a fulfillment element to it as well. Then also social element, a lot of my friends liked video games and we would play together. So it was kind of what I did socially growing up. It's very interesting to see how mainstream it is now, but it was a little bit different at that time.

[00:04:43] Jesse Purewal: Talk about how you ginned up the likes of a high school position at a place like Activision. I got to think there's some chops you got to bring and some savvy, you got to bring to be able to pull something like that off at that stage of your life.

[00:04:57] Justin Barad: I had no idea what was going on. I think I just asked anybody. I think this is actually a skill that has come in handy is almost a level of shamelessness. You're just like, hey, like I really want to do something in video games. Do you know anyone? And they're like, oh, I know this person and it's like, ask them and then you ask them and then they're like, oh, I know these two people ask them. And so eventually you ask enough people and you meet someone. I don't know, somehow I ended up there. Yeah, I had no business being there and I don't think I was particularly productive or knew what I was doing, but certainly it was an amazing experience for me.

[00:05:30] Jesse Purewal: And as you look back at the early time in your life, what do you think is true about the kinds of people that had a significant influence on you? What did you either seek out actively or turn out to have sought? If you think about the mentors, the people around you who grew you and helped shape you and how to give you direction and focus.

[00:05:49] Justin Barad: Yeah. And I think at that time another thing I've been passionate about for most of my life is music, so I think my music teachers have always been really influential on me. And I think that's where my creativity and desire to create comes from my piano teacher in particular, Margie Balter, who was amazing and tragically passed away, but really pushed me to create music and to create something from nothing. And she's really who got me hooked on like, oh, wow, you can just make something up and it can be amazing and I didn't know that was possible before.

I went to a really amazing high school with some incredible people and mentors, some people that I still talk to this day, I don't know if that's weird to talk to your high school mentors, but one guy at Harvard-Westlake who is in charge of alumni relations now, Ed, who I still call him Mr. Who from time to time, he tells me to stop because it feels weird. I just really respect the guy and he is really there for me when you're trying to like figure out where to go to college and what you want to do with your life and things like that. And so grateful to people like that that took the time, they didn't get paid for, they didn't get anything, but they really got satisfaction out of helping others. And I try and pay that forward as best as I can.

[00:06:54] Jesse Purewal: I have to admit, I don't know a ton of physicians who focus in a more kind of surgical way who maybe have that kind of renaissance focus or that art and science balance. So talk to me about what the experiences in your life were that led you into medicine and whether like Leonardo, you might have sort of that obvious connection between the art and science or if it represented a little bit more of a deflection from some of that stuff.

[00:07:23] Justin Barad: Well, I can talk about my pathway into medicine but I'll just say that I think physicians are a very diverse bunch and healthcare professionals and providers in general. A lot of people who practice medicine... You definitely get these single minded, what we used to call gunners, in med school. It's like all they want to do is I just want to do surgery. I just want to practice medicine. One of the trauma guys I used to work with, he's like I only love two things in life, I want to do surgery and I want to surf every day of my life and that's it. And I'm like, okay, wow. That's probably not me as much, but a thing that a lot of people share who are in medicine and especially surgeon is passion. And there is still an art to medicine.

So there are a lot of people who do quite a few different things and I don't think I'm alone. And I was just hanging out with one of my friends from residency as a plastic surgeon, now he's like a bit of an artist and I was meeting him for dinner. I guess another surfing story, he's like, hold on. I got surf real quick for 30 minutes and I'll come meet you. And then he was like remodeling his house and he's in a band. He is a lead singer for a band. You get people in medicine who have all of this passion and all of these interests. And I think some of the challenges that people are having today is that, whereas you used to be able to explore those a lot more within medicine and kind of be creative is that now it is much more of like, hey, you're in this box, this lane just do this for the rest of your life. Which works for some people but you see a lot of people start to push against the limitations and they're like, I wanted more out of this. I feel like I'm not being creative enough or I'm not fulfilled as much as I thought it would be and seeking ways to fulfill that. And sometimes that's surfing or being in band and sometimes that's getting involved in technology, which I think is part of the path that I took.

[00:09:00] Jesse Purewal: And so where do you think that pendulum is swinging or not swinging? Like about a decade ago it was all the rage to say you've got to specialize, maybe even borderline hyper specialized. Like if you want to build a relevant and a compelling kind of career arc and a place where you can be distinctive and succeed over the longer term. Then five or six years ago, it started to become more in vogue to say, well, actually if you have more range, you can think of yourself more as a T-shaped instead of an I-shaped kind of person. Where, yeah, you're going to have to be an expert in a few things, but boy, having a lot of lateral moves is also great.

I think about medicine sometimes as a patient, I have this experience with these, sub subspecialties and you're like, oh no, if your index finger's hurting, you don't go to me. Like, I'm the palm guy and you're like, oh, come on. Can't the palm guy be the index finger guy. But where do you see this evolving to, the difference between having range and having more of a subspecialty in medicine?

[00:09:56] Justin Barad: I think both will always be important and it just really depends on the context. Like some index finger surgery, anybody can do, I do index finger surgery. But some people you're like, hey, this is a hard problem, you're going to need someone who is highly specialized to do this. And I think if you're hyper specialized as an index finger surgeon, just to keep going with that analogy, people may be like, hey, can you be on this hand society? And then can you be on this resident selection committee? And then people are like, wow, these are awesome opportunities. And what ends up happening is you're not really doing a good job with any one of those things. What I see is that you'll have organizations of literally just people who are like all this same kind of cookie cutter of like, I am so successful, I'm doing like 50 things, but I'm not really putting a lot of energy into any one of them. So these organizations as a whole are not making progress because everybody spreads so thin.

So I think spreading ourselves so thin is a challenge, but clearly there is an advantage to connecting the dots. Like what are we good at? And in technology, I think there is a huge amount of interest today, especially post COVID, we're all much more comfortable with technology both in general and in our daily lives and then also through the introduction of telemedicine and all of these pandemic related technologies. And you combine that with this feeling of, oh, I'm not progressing anymore in my career and people see technology as a way to keep going, as a way to have a bigger impact, as a way to have fun and it's fulfilling and it's cool. But the challenge is that not everyone is actually a good fit to work with technology. And so all of these people want to get involved in technology start technology companies, but there's no training available to any of us in medicine on like how to interface with these companies, how technology works.

People that want to really actually be deeply involved, like I want to start a company or I want to be a CMO or run these companies, it's hard to balance that and stay in the fold of the modern medical world. It's very easy to become sort of ostracized or be on the outside and you're no longer seen as a part of the process. And more and more, I think it's becoming acceptable to have a career like mine and many others in this space, but it's something we need to push for to have better integration. So we as healthcare providers who are on the front lines with patients, when we're driving this effectively, the results are unbelievable. It's really incredible, really exciting. So we should be encouraging and training ourselves and the next generation to do this exact same thing, instead of just hoping that some people will want to take a big risk in their lives and kind of alienate a lot of people and then work their way back up.

[00:12:17] Jesse Purewal: So talk about what was going on in your career, in your life and how you were organizing your thinking around the possibilities of not just doing one or the other, of being a practicing physician, being a technology leader, but actually doing both.

[00:12:32] Justin Barad: Well, I think I need to go back a little bit to explain how I even got there in the first place. And this is an amazing conversation by the way and I don't think I'm going to need to meet with my therapist this week. So, on my way into college I had an experience, a family member got very sick and I went from wanting my life to be structured around creating video games and entertain people to wondering if there was a way to use these skills I developed around technology, not for entertainment, but to help people. And so in college I studied biomedical engineering and in my mind I wanted to invent technologies. And as I was nearing graduation, I didn't really see a pathway to do that. I didn't know how to do that. And I was a little stressed out about it. So I did the same thing I did with getting the internship, just asked everybody on this street, like, hey, what do you know about like healthcare innovation?

One of my mentors is gastroenterologist Henry Lynn. He told me something that still sticks with me to this day. He said, Justin, if you want to invent something, you really need to understand the problem you're trying to solve first. In his mind, the best way to understand medical problems was to be a doctor. Honestly, at first I'm like, I don't know if I want to do that, but I thought about it. I thought to myself, if I really am committed to creating new medical technology and that's what I want to do with my life, this makes sense to me. It's a big commitment, but I got to prove myself to myself. I worked in his lab for a year, literally collecting rat flatulence in a Tupperware container. It was not glamorous. And I was able to get into med school. I got into one med school, it was hard. I squeaked by. Failure shouldn't hold people back because I failed constantly along this journey.

I end up becoming an orthopedic surgeon, which orthopedics to me is completely magical. It uses a lot of my education, when I was in college I was an engineer so if I could use mechanical engineering to help people, which is so cool, and it uses a lot of technology. You have people literally wheeled in unable to walk, bones sticking out of their skin very dramatically and then you do a surgery's like an hour and a half and they're literally up and walking that day. And it's like, what else can you do where you see that kind of transformational change. Everyone's like, whoa, this feels like magic.

One of the first surgeries I ever did as a resident. Have you ever seen the movie Gattaca? So you know, like to look more like Jude Law, he has to be taller. And so have these saws and these hins and rings and I'm like, oh my God, science fiction is so cool. The first surgery I ever did as an orthopedic resident was the Gattaca surgery. It's called distraction osteogenesis. I didn't even know that existed. I was like, what? I thought this is like from movies, this is a thing. This kid who very tragically was run over by a lawnmower when he was little and one leg was much shorter than the other, he couldn't walk without a wheelchair or crutches. A few months down the road, his legs are the same size and he's walking around with a smile on his face. I'm like, this is unbelievable.

I think the moment I knew I wanted to do pediatric orthopedics specifically is I had this one experience where there was a child from Liberia who flew in, who had an untreated club foot. Basically was walking on the end of his tibia and not his foot, which was curled in he's about 16 years old. And so we did this surgical called a triple arthrodesis. You take out a bunch of bones fuse it together. It's not like a slick surgery, it's a salvage last resort thing. But we're able to get his foot under his ankle and I'm walking into the clinic for a follow up appointment. I could see him out of the corner of my eye and I could hear him say, dad, dad, dad, that's the guy that made it so I could walk again. It still makes me like tear up a little bit to hear the story, but I'm like, okay, this is what I want to do with my life.

That was kind of my introduction to mission based work. Whereas all of healthcare is mission driven in a way, but there's something about taking care of kids and it feels different and this felt different to me. I could see myself wanting to wake up every day to do this thing, to have this feeling that I had in that moment. I wanted more of that.

Now in parallel I had gotten involved in VR very early because of my gaming background, I was just very passionate about it. And the second I put it on my head and I'm in like a virtual villa in Tuscany and I was able to hack it together with these controllers that let you use your hands. So I could pick up like a chair and some books. I'm like, oh my God, this would solve a huge problem. Which is how we train and assess surgeons and providers that do procedures. Surgeons are amazing. Healthcare providers are amazing. But we're just spread really thin across a lot of procedures that are much harder to learn today with no way to assess ourselves. So every now and then someone would be like, Justin, can you run to the computer real quick, and they wouldn't say this but like effectively, can you Google what to do? Can you look up a video, a technique guide, we're stuck. I'm like, this is wild. And this technology is directly going to impact this.

So I started thinking about eventually building a prototype myself and I met my co-founder on the internet. I was like looking for work for VR and I had some money saved up for my bar mitzvah, used to pay this guy. And so at that time, I didn't think I'd be able to continue practicing medicine. I thought I was basically going to have to walk away from medicine to do a startup that 99% it would fail. But this felt bigger than my own career. This felt existential to my friends and family who may one day need surgery, even myself. What do my personal aspirations really matter when the world is at risk? Yeah it might not work, but someone has to do something. Someone has to go for it. And I may flame out and who knows what'll happen after that? But at least I stood up and said something. And so October 2016, I'm in a Starbucks by myself working remotely with a stranger I met on the internet getting a lot of concerned text messages from friends and family and here we are today.

[00:18:08] Jesse Purewal: But how are you pushing through, particularly in a world where you're kind of figuring these things out as you go? So you are both reflecting on what career possibilities, life possibilities are out there for you in near real time, as well as getting used to the idea that all these things are potentially a risk and you've got to nail it. How do you do that? What do you think led you to succeed?

[00:18:31] Justin Barad: I mean, have I succeeded yet? Have we succeeded? There's still people who are receiving surgical care that I think isn't as good as it could be. I think I want to make sure that every patient in the world has access to the best procedures that are performed at the highest level so that it's like getting on a plane. We're not Googling our pilots, I mean, maybe some people try to, but generally you're going to have the same result every single time. But we do do these things with surgery, because we all know there's a little bit of variability out there. I would love to see a world where that's not the case and you can just jump into the operating room like you were getting on a plane. So, that to me, I will feel successful at that point. But I don't know if I could tell you I feel like a normal person and I don't know, maybe that's different.

If you are going to be innovative and especially in entrepreneurship, you are going to fail nonstop. None of this stuff is going to work statistically, it's kind of insane. But if you're just sort of like, well, 1%, you're saying there's a chance. You got to be a little bit glass half full. And I think I'm an optimistic, resilient person and I think that's a big part of it. I really used to love pick up basketball and I would always get picked first, because I'm tall for pickup. I'm like 6'4. But I am really bad at basketball, it's startling. Everyone was always so disappointed and I never really got any better honestly, but I always showed up. I'm like, maybe I could do better this time and I didn't, but it never stopped me or slowed me down.

[00:20:03] Jesse Purewal: Let me ask you about the experience in healthcare and the way that you fundamentally hoped to transform it or gradually shifted over time. How do you see Osso playing a role in moving the status quo of the way medicine is practiced, the way surgery is done, the way the patient provider relationship is orchestrated, all of these things? Talk about the impact that you hope to have as you look to the future of the business.

[00:20:28] Justin Barad: Well, I think we can look at what are some of the data around the problems that we're facing today? What are some of the data around the impact that Osso is currently having and then how does that scale up in the future? What does that look like where everyone is using this? Even pre-pandemic, we were in a very scary situation. Once again, the problem is there's too much to learn, modern surgery's complicated and there's basically no assessment. So what is the result of that? How does that affect you and me?

Well, if you look at some of the data from like say 2017, 31% of graduating residents, so these are people who've been in training for about 14 years that go through college med school, internship residency, 31% of those could not operate without someone helping them or supervising them, which is a startling number. We're also projected back then to be 130,000 physicians short by about 2030. That is obviously much worse now. And then we went through the pandemic and we're still trying to understand what exactly the effect of this was, but we have a massive amount of educational debt that we're going to be seeing for years down the road. But it's like this training challenge is affecting every aspect of healthcare delivery. So how can VR training and assessment help?

Well, you have this $300 headset you can use any time and anywhere. And the published data that we have in one study that was done at UCLA shows that people that trained in Osso VR when compared with traditional training performed about 10 points higher on this scale called OSATS or about 230% higher, went from basically 10 to 20. So like a massive difference in improvement in healthcare treatment. In another study they were looking at the ability to perform a procedure without needing someone to supervise you, without needing someone to help. And in that study, this was done in at University Illinois, Chicago published in a top three orthopedic journal called CORR. The success rate went from 25% with traditional training to 78% with Osso VR. And we have about six peer reviewed studies that showed very similar results.

Today it's being used by 4,000 plus healthcare professionals a month and we have almost 200 different training modules on the platforms. The world's largest VR healthcare company. But we want to get this to everyone. Who's everyone? They're 1.1 million surgeons around the world doing 310 million procedures a year. Imagine every single one of those is improving their performance 200 to 300%. They're cutting their surgical time in half. They're not practicing on 40 people, 5X-ing their learning curve. This is all data that we have. That is an improvement in healthcare delivery that is just really rarely seen outside of the introduction of new vaccines or new therapeutic categories like antibiotics. What's wild about the whole thing is it uses video game technology. And so it's like this opportunity to completely transform healthcare delivery, our health, the cost of healthcare, using video game tech. It's something that I just find so exciting that it's all I want to do every day of my life. And I want to get this to everybody because it will just completely change every aspect of how we think about healthcare in today's day and age.

[00:23:41] Jesse Purewal: What is the experience of using Osso? What kinds of things are sort of immediately delightful and intuitive to use and kind of slip into the regular kind of workflows and brain flows that a physician is going to undertake? And then where are the places where they might have to do some unlearning or relearning or new learning to get the most out of the experience of engaging with technology in this way?

[00:24:05] Justin Barad: I don't think there's a lot anyone needs to unlearn and we're not really taking anything away, this is really supplementing a lot of the current educational models that we have. Just making that more effective and giving us an objective assessment tool.

One of the first steps to getting someone to use a new technology, especially in healthcare, is giving them a reason to use it. They have to put it on, they have to engage. You could have the best technology in the world that works perfectly, but if people don't use it, doesn't provide value. So, I always say, data's not enough. It's not enough to just show that this works really well. We got to inspire people to do something slightly different, to use this new technology, to try something. So how do we do that?

Well, initially with Osso, I'm an engineer, I'm a surgeon, I'm just very kind of bare bones and cookie cutter. I'm like, it could look like crap, it just needs to train surgeons. And one day someone accidentally changed a setting in the module and they looked different and someone tried it on and they were like, oh my God, did you just like put another million dollars into this? This is unbelievable. Hey everyone, come check this out. And like, there's a crowd forming around. Everyone's very excited. I'm like, oh wow. There's something here. There's something disproportionately impactful about the experience, the visual quality, that seems to be inspiring. And so we ended up investing in developing this huge art studio that rivals what you might find at Disney. And what we've strived to do at Osso is to inspire people through the power of art, to think about doing things differently. And that has worked really, really well. And that is actually, if you look at medical history, which I nerd out about a bunch, some of the major breakthroughs we've had in medicine have been because of art.

So we're trying to do with a headset, what a famous physician Andreas Vesalius did with a book called The Fabrica. So when you put on the headset, yes, what is the experience like? The experience is one of wonder, because you put on the headset and it's not just that you're in the virtual operating room. It's that you're in a visual experience that is not like anything anyone has really tried before even within just VR in general. It's really does stand out and it gets people very excited. So they put it on and then it's very easy to use. With simulation. You're really balancing three elements, the realism of the experience, the ease of use of the usability, you don't want to be frustrating, and then finally the education, what do you want people to do once they've run through these modules? What do you want them to be able to do in real life? What skills do you want them to learn? And you interacting with technology and surgical instruments and anatomy and you can train together with the whole team or you could have coaches come in remotely. And then at the end you're getting an assessment and analytics and how you can improve your performance the next time.

So here's something we can use every day in between cases, you can just put the VR headset on and run through the case you're about to do or cases you have at the next day. Or at night when you're at home and just the comfort of your own home with your family you can train and assess for whatever you need to or train others.

[00:26:52] Jesse Purewal: Do you think that there will emerge any kind of MD entrepreneurship combos or are there even those things already happening? Because what you're describing is both a cultural barrier to entry in terms of the more resolute, deliberate way of evolving a career or evolving an industry that you see in medicine versus historically in technology, right? Which is like, oh, you've got access to an AWS data cloud and you've got high speed internet and you've got some devices, if you have funding, then you have a company. Great, you can get a product out there. Just very different than historical kind of parameters around medicine. But do you see those two things coming together in interesting ways? And could we even see the advent of programs designed to help address that shortfall of people who are needed in medicine by getting them maybe in the technology door first and the medical door second in a similar way to how you experienced it?

[00:27:49] Justin Barad: Oh yeah, definitely. We're seeing some amazing things. One is you can get an MBA and it's interesting that can be helpful for some people, especially with building a network. And that used to be very taboo. Like if you had an MBA it'd be hard to get a residency spot because they saw it as like you weren't serious about medicine. And I think that's really fading away where people now see this as like a positive thing. So just a signal that people are becoming more comfortable. You see programs like biodesign has been a real pioneer in this area, but you're seeing similar programs pop up. Like UCLA has a biodesign program. TMC has a biodesign. There are other innovation programs like Penn has a something called, I believe it's called a healthX, which is really cool. So you're definitely seeing these initiatives pop up here and there.

I think there are a couple of key things we really need to figure out. One is the training itself to become a physician is too long. We really need as a profession to look at this because we're not getting the best and the brightest, obviously incredible people are become physicians. But I do worry that there's a little bit of brain drain where you look at a career in medicine and it's like 15, 16 years before you have a job. Then you look at a career in health technology and you're like, oh, I mean, almost immediately you're having an impact at a huge scale and you could advance very quickly, not be in debt and not end up needing therapy on the other end. I see very smart, innovative people want to be in healthcare, just choosing not to go to med school in the first place or just jumping ship after med school and I don't think we want that.

So you see programs like NYU who are cutting down now to three years, which I think, why not two? I think there's a real opportunity there. And then with formal training, I think especially with the surgical specialties, using something like Osso or competency based training we can maybe get more efficient, maybe shave a year off, maybe one day two. I think that will be hard, but these things will help a lot.

And then the next thing we need is we need more training within these paths of how to do entrepreneurship innovation. It's not something you learn from like a 6 to 12 month program, it really is a lifelong pursuit. And so in residency it's very common to have a research track where it's like, you're going to be a clinician scientist so you take a year to do research and also you get training along the way. And I would love to see these longitudinal innovation tracks where something very similar, where you can build your network, you can learn the skills you need while you're in training.

And then the final piece is how do we justify or structure a career for clinicians who want to be innovative, who want to work with companies or start companies so that they don't have to kind of jump ship in order to do so and we can kind of keep them in the fold. And there is value beyond financial value to having these people within key healthcare institutions who are driving innovation within healthcare and so that these institutions can be part of that conversation.

[00:30:19] Jesse Purewal: From the place you sit today and I know you're just getting started and the work here is never done in this kind of endeavor. But, I look at you and I see someone who is getting a chance to put their passions not just to work, but to drive real impact. Not just one thing that you happen to like, but the focus on gaming early in your life and putting that to use and the creativity and the engineering degree and the medical expertise and the passion you develop for other things along the way, all kind of coming together. For somebody who knows what their passions are, what advice do you have for them? How would you console people who know their passions, but don't quite know how to put them to work in a career setting?

[00:30:59] Justin Barad: I once had someone say to me, I was interviewing for a fellowship spot at this hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, which is amazing institution. And they took one look at my personal statement, which I think I wrote about how I wanted to create the Terminator and or the $6 million man. This is how I know people don't read personal statements because I really came off as like a serial killer here, but this guy actually read it. So he's like, hey, I read your personal statement and you seem a little different from the other applicants. So I kind of want to give you some life advice. I'm like, all right, this is interesting. See where this goes. And he said, don't worry about what you're supposed to do to be successful, so many people do that. Just pursue what you're passionate about and you're clearly a passionate person and like success comes from that. That's how it works.

I guess the advice I would give others is there will come a time where you have a choice, you can pick a direction and I think that's when you let your passion guide. You don't want it pulling you wildly in every direction, but you will have these major milestones where you will need to lean on your passion to help figure out how to navigate uncertain waters.

[00:31:59] Jesse Purewal: And I love it. You also have your own podcast that you've recently launched The Slice. Tell us about it.

[00:32:04] Justin Barad: I can't believe it. I mean, it sounds weird to say I have a podcast. But yeah, it is a pizza themed healthcare innovation podcast. I find that two of the things that connect us all in life is our health and then also our love of pizza. I've never met anyone that doesn't love it and I feel like it's just a great connection point that reminds us that we're all human and we're out the same level. I'm really obsessed with pizza if that's not clear. It's really for these people that you know, interested in healthcare innovation, healthcare technology, want to hear the latest and greatest. But people were like, I want to be more involved, but there are a lot of challenges or I don't know how or I don't know which passion to follow. I have a lot of interests. And so we have people like investors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, technology leaders, leading clinicians who have been down these rows, have been down these journeys.

It's not so much about this amazing technology or this surgery that you do, but tell us how you got there. Tell us about the journey and tell us about the stuff you don't usually tell people. Tell us about the not fun stuff, the challenging stuff, the stuff where you're crying under your desk in the fetal position, because I think what people want to hear is that this is so hard. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but then you hear these stories from people you're like, hey, actually it is really hard, but they made it through, you can do this too. And then hopefully inspire people to find that path so they can help all of us. That's what's like so cool about this field is that when people are successful, we all win.

[00:33:25] Jesse Purewal: All right. Well, sign off today, if you would, Justin, by telling me what your favorite pizza is and whether that's always been the case or whether you've changed your tune over time.

[00:33:34] Justin Barad: Think it's evolved a little bit. I'd say my favorite pizza place is Rosie's Pizza in Point Pleasant Beach New Jersey, it's just unbelievable. And my favorite pizza in general, I think is the margarita pizza. Maybe it would've been like a New York cheese pizza before, but sometimes you just need to nail the basics. So a classic straightforward pizza, I think maybe is me, I'm just a straightforward, normal human.

[00:33:57] Jesse Purewal: Justin Barad, a classic straightforward, wonderful human. Thank you for the pleasure of your time and your company today. Best of luck with the show. Best of luck with the business. Talk to you soon.

[00:34:07] Justin Barad: Thanks so much for having me.

[00:34:08] Jesse Purewal: Thanks for listening to Breakthrough Builders. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review and tell a friend. Breakthrough Builders is a Qualtric Studio's original. Hosted an executive produced by me, Jesse Purewal. An awesome team of people puts this show together, including our show writer, Todd Bagnull and our head of social media. Chelsea Hunersen. From StudioPod Mediain San Francisco our show coordinator is Nicole Genova. Editing and music are by producer Sterling Shore and executive producer Katie Sunku Wood with sound engineering by Ryan Crowther. At VaynerTalent in New York, Samantha Heapps, Hanna Park and Yvonne Lynn provide publicity and promotional support. The shows designers are Baron Santiago and Vinsuka Chindavijak. Our website is by Gregory Hedon. Photography by Christy Hemm Klok. Special thanks to the entire Breakthrough Builders crew at Qualtrics, including Ali Rohani, Ben Hawken, John Johnson, and Kylan Lundeen

Season 5Jesse PurewalJustin Barad, Jesse Purewal, medicine, education, virtual reality, orthopedics, product experience, technology, healthcare, surgery, patient experience