What’s up yall this is Jon Lowrance with Anesthesia Guidebook. I’m really excited to bring you this episode on the future of healthcare with Dr Navin Goyal and Saket Agrawal of OFFOR Health.
This is episode 79 of anesthesia guidebook and it’s coming out on June 24, 2022.
This is one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had with contributors to this show. Navin & Saket are here to discuss what the future looks like – or what it could look like – for physicians in healthcare. They hit on something that’s not talked about very much in medical school or residency programs or every around the OR amongst your colleagues, which is “what more can you do” as a physician anesthesiologist? What else is out there? Graduating from medical school and completing your residency is really just the beginning – or as Navin puts it – fills one particular bucket in your career. But there are other possibilities out there and now more than ever, he and Saket want to share with you how physicians can engage in new ventures and roles both in the healthcare sector and beyond as a way to leverage the value you bring as a highly trained clinician.
They unpack this story and create this invitation to look beyond your clinical practice through sharing the story of OFFOR Health and the path they’ve been on as business partners.
So let me tell you a little about each of them and then we’ll get to it…
Navin Goyal, MD is a physician anesthesiologist and a co-founder of SmileMD, a mobile anesthesiology startup that is aiming to change the accessibility of anesthesia to small practices. He is also a co-founder of Loud Capital, a venture capital firm that provides financial support to early-stage startups as well as value-added services such as business development and guidance in scaling sales operations.
Navin received his MD from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and trained in anesthesiology at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Saket is the CEO of OFFOR Health, a company that brings access to specialists closer to home by partnering with local dentists and medical offices to deliver specialized care. Saket became CEO of OFFOR Health in 2016 after working for years in the technology space in Silicon Valley.
Sakate graduated from The Ohio State University with training in computer science and engineering, earned his MBA in North Carolina, and worked in tech in San Francisco for nearly 10 years before SmileMD’s mission drew him back to Columbus.
So one of the contextual frameworks we worked off of in planning this discussion was physician anesthesiologist burnout. Navin is going to share with you his own story of being over a decade into his clinical practice at a large academic medical center when he began to feel bored with the daily grind and started wondering what else was out there. We talked before we recorded this about the MedScape 2022 Physician Burnout & Depression survey. Now this is a survey I’ve been following for several years and sharing in my own talks at anesthesia conferences on wellness. Each year, Medscape surveys around 13-15,000 physicians across 29 specialities and reports data on burnout, what contributes to burnout and how to mitigate it. In their 2022 survey, they reported that 47% of physicians reported feeling burnt out last year.
We certainly know the pandemic has created an incredible degree of stress on everyone’s lives – not just healthcare providers – and has served as a huge lever or catalyst for individuals across sectors to re-evaluate what they’re doing and why. Physician anesthesiologists, along with CRNAs & other healthcare providers, are right in the middle of this cultural upheaval.
And that’s another reason why I’m so pumped to bring you this talk. Navin & Saket talk about what motivated them to create OFFOR Health and provide novel solutions – not only for patients in need – but for providers who are looking to shake things up in their own professional lives.
You may remember back in episode 26 I spoke with Paul Samuels, a pediatric physician anesthesiologist about mobile pediatric dental anesthesia. In that episode, he unpacked the nitty gritty of what SmileMD is all about – which an OFFOR Health company – along with the specific anesthesia considerations for practicing in mobile, pediatric dental settings. Be sure to check that episode out if you want to hear a little more on SmileMD.
Stay tuned for lots of amazing things coming your way on the podcast… I’ve got several more shows on the business of anesthesia headed your way in the coming weeks along with one on the McLott Mix for opioid free anesthesia with Mr Jason McLott himself and ton of more content in the editing phase right now.
As always, I’m stoked to hear from you. Thank you so much for those of you who have reached out through email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter – or even in person for all the SRNAs at the University of New England here in Portland, Maine.
And with that, let’s get to the show!
Resources:
Anesthesia Guidebook episode on SmileMD: #26 – Mobile, pediatric dental anesthesia with Paul Samuels, MD
Physician Underdog, a book by Navin Goyal, MD
Beyond Physician – a professional development platform for physicians
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