To understand the concept of “doctorpreneurship” firstly, we have to know what doctorpreneurship means. Doctorpreneurship has got a big innovative potential because doctors recognize the lack of technology or methods in the sector, try to improve it themselves, incorporate innovation into the business, and find a solution to a problem. Nowadays, the system is calling for innovative minds and volunteers of improvement. Doctorpreneurship lies right at this point.
Statistics from the World Health Organisation show that over 40% of WHO Member States report have fewer than 10 medical doctors per 10.000 population. (over 26% report to have less than 3). Health workers are distributed unevenly across the globe. Countries with the lowest relative need have the highest numbers of health workers, while those with the greatest burden of disease must make do with a much smaller health workforce *.
Let’s explore the world of doctorpreneurs. First of all, their exit point is to meet the patients’ needs as well as possible and reach more and more people. They form their businesses according to the market rules and necessities. They give priority to improvement, not profitability. They do everything they and technology can do to gather information about the intended population. Not finished yet. The doctors who entered this world are considered risk-takers. Let me tell you about this. First of all, there is not a priority or a special help given to anyone in the world of freelance economies. This means a doctorpreneur is the boss and the one and only financer of his or her business. It’s risk-taking. Apart from this, there are other difficulties of doctorpreneurs. Let’s think of a new start-up and you will understand the system’s eternal need to be renewed. It’s the same about doctorpreneurship. Your start-up will demand you to improve it. Of course, finding new ideas and solving some problems is not an easy thing. Besides, most of the start-ups today are invented for electronic devices and for the digital world. At least today’s world is like that. Here, the difficulty is to find and approach the correct technological way. This lies at the point of the knowledge of the daily use of technology and it changes so quickly and it can be hard to follow it between our occupations and works.
For digital innovation users of doctorpreneurs data security is a huge challenge. A lot of clinicians struggle at that stage because they talk in different languages to the investors. So lack of knowledge is another bottleneck, but if you manage to get beyond that point, you can raise money from your angels.
Series A where you get professional financial investors who are dealing with hundreds of deals and trying to filter through them and looking at things in a cold-hearted way because those are the guys who are putting in the big money. That’s difficult for any entrepreneur. Clinicians speak a different language. The process is non-sentimental **.
Here, I put short stories of doctorpreneurs as an example.
Doctorpreneurs : Katie Tran of “Katie Kodes”
Katie is a pre-med/medical scientist turned web developer on a mission to empower career changers and women in STEM ***. She helps individuals along their journey of a career change, providing career mentoring, and empowering women to be brave and own it in technology. She is passionate about the intersection between healthcare and technology, using technology to drive change in healthcare, providing seamless experiences for patients. Katie Kodes aims to empower females in STEM, with a focus on technology for career changers alike. The Koded community focuses on all things technology, career mentoring, self-development, and empowering females to own it in the field of technology & in life. While pursuing her interests in medicine, she was drawn to the world of technology and seamless software via my passions in writing and building her own websites. Pursuing medicine was the logical path akin to her interests in chemistry and making a positive difference in people’s lives.
However, she was highly drawn to the aspect of problem-solving & providing solutions using technical skills coupled with a strong sense of creativity. Technology and the art of programming provided that avenue for her.
She believes that medicine is traditionally perceived as quite a straightforward career path, with a strong inclination to a particular way of life. Most careers in healthcare are very structural and don’t really foster the creativity to step out. It is perceived as risky and unknown. This can come down to the exposure to entrepreneurship, motivation, mentoring, and the encouragement of entrepreneurship overall. Despite calculating the risks, pros, and cons of a career in healthcare or not, she believes in choosing a career that most exemplifies what we believe in, aligns with our values, and places a positive contribution to society.
👨🏻⚕️ Doctorpreneurs: Dr. Richard McMahon 📞
He found an organization named SwiftDoc. He is an experienced GP (General Practitioner) with interests in all aspects of general medicine, dermatology, surgery, and psychiatry. SwiftDoc’s noble purpose is to provide convenient, high quality, affordable and safe healthcare using telehealth, to everyone in Australia and beyond.
The entrepreneurial and competitive streak in him never went away either and his interest in computing and programming has brought him to the field of healthcare technology a.k.a. healthtech.
He thinks that many doctors feel uncomfortable being paid to help someone when they would probably still help without being paid, but he says to doctors: “Economics does not work in that way. Compassion, care, and empathy are in some ways at odds with the financial necessities of providing healthcare. We are at a new frontier of medicine. The advent of the internet of things, distributed ledger technology, and data management will have massive implications for healthcare and it is the perfect time to be involved especially as an entrepreneur.”
Becoming a doctorpreneur might seem difficult. If you look at examples of what the others are doing you would be more aware. We, Oruba Innovation and Technology, are ready to show you some examples.
We believe that you can save people and save the world. Keep following us and learn how people survive in this job. The Doctorpreneurship blog series will continue as well.
Stay healthy!
* World Health Data Platform /GHO /Indicators Medical doctors (per 10.000 population), World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/medical-doctors-(per-10-000-population), (2020)*
** https://doctorpreneurs.com/dr-jamie-wilson-founder-hometouch-update/*
*** STEM is the unification of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. It’s a composed approach of education and technology. The main aim is to show the achievements of technology by gathering the lessons in school and applied technologies.*
