Introducing our new executive team and goals for 2021
Since our public launch in May 2020, MD++ has grown at an incredible rate to over 800 medical students and aspiring physician-innovators all across the country. As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, we need more physician-leaders who see the forest and the trees: physicians who not only serve patients directly through medical practice but who can also design and build a more equitable, efficient, and cost-effective healthcare system.
As we continue to grow with expanded leadership and as a newly minted 501c3 non-profit, we’re doubling-down on our mission to empower the next generation of physician-innovators who will improve healthcare delivery…
Aspiring physician-innovator teams supported by AlleyCorp to pursue new ideas
Huge congrats 🎉 to all of our finalists, winners, and a special thanks to our amazing judges and most importantly the >50 MD++ medical students who participated in our inaugural innovation challenge. Our leadership team and judges were blown away by the level of depth and nuance that each of the teams explored — especially considering almost all of the teams had never met or worked together before the competition, and only had ~2 weeks to put together a pitch.
We wanted to publicly announce and congratulate our 3 grand prize winners 🙌
A 5 week virtual program to hone new ideas addressing social determinants of health
By Sherman Leung, Jennifer Dias, Katie Hanss
Healthcare innovation has long overlooked the disparities and inequities that our most marginalized communities face on a daily basis. One’s zip code is often a powerful predictor of life expectancy, and recent national events of civil unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic have further unveiled the gaping chasm between those with means and those without. Though the digital health industry has seen much growth and adoption of social entrepreneurship to address the differences we see, there is no better time than now to call for more innovation.
A community of aspiring physician-innovators
MD++ aims to empower the next generation of physician-innovators who will improve healthcare delivery through the intersection of technology, business, and life sciences. Just as many clinicians spend a portion of their time on research, we see an emerging future for practicing physicians to work in interdisciplinary settings to reinvent healthcare and improve patient outcomes on a large scale.
Together, we work to:
Create opportunities for medical students to build skills and connections in technology, business, and life sciences
Advocate for sustainable pathways to pursue physician-led innovation within medical education and alongside clinical practice
Connect communities of aspiring and established…
How do we bridge and reconcile our different personalities/personas?
I learned about an interesting concept earlier today that inspired an introspective thought exercise, self-complexity: our perceived characterization of the multiple/different personalities or self-aspects that we possess. Though the term itself might have more meaning in a psychologist context; to me, the idea is best understood in the following 2x2 that represents the various personas and identities I’ve taken on professionally and personally:
Incoming med student <> investing/incubating at AlleyCorp
Thrilled to share that I’ll be joining the AlleyCorp team as an associate to work on healthcare and enterprise tech investments + incubations. Almost a year after sharing my medium/long-term ambitions in both venture capital and medicine, I couldn’t be more excited to be working with Brenton Fargnoli and Kevin Ryan on investing in and building healthcare companies in NYC.
Before sharing a few reasons why I’m excited about joining the AlleyCorp team, wanted to first acknowledge how amazing my first experience in venture capital has been with the Underscore VC team this past year. Given previous healthtech/product experiences at…
From building products to building portfolios
When I first started thinking about a career in venture capital, I had a few misconceptions about the role, especially as it pertained to early-stage VC.
Now, as I near the 1-year marker in my role at Underscore VC, I wanted to dispel a number of myths and share some insights from the perspective of a product manager turned early-stage investor:
(PM)isconceptions about VC
You need a “finance” or “MBA” background
Though helpful, most companies at the earliest stage often don’t have meaningful metrics to truly grok or assess. A background in building and launching products can be immensely helpful — particularly when it comes to assessing a team’s ability…
Advice from design thought leaders at IDEO, Frog Design, Coinbase, and PillPack
When design-thinking integrates seamlessly into a continuous delivery of user and customer value, awesome products and companies can emerge. At Underscore VC’s Core Summit, we heard from IDEO’s Matt Weiss about how design can help navigate the awkward “puberty stage” when discovering new products.
In addition to this product discovery phase, we reached out to design firms and design-oriented startups to better understand design-thinking in the context of product development. We dug in seeking to highlight successful characteristics of design-thinking in practice. …
Lessons learned from supporting our most vulnerable patient populations
As I’ve been shadowing and volunteering in a number of healthcare institutions over the past year, I’ve found that types of providers that I support seem to fall into a 2-by-2 framework:
- EDs often see the most socially and medically complex patients and is where the bulk of healthcare costs lie.
- ICUs see patients that have difficult co-morbidities (often in post-operative states) but have a higher proportion of patients that can be safely discharged to home or an appropriate level of step-down care.
- The majority of PCP visits are focused on the already healthy patients that have a stable social…
Breaking down a human relationship into its body parts
This is a continuation and reflection on the conversation I recently had with a close friend currently in medical school. We were reflecting on the different elements of a relationship — with friends, significant others, classmates, etc… and began describing it in terms of the different parts of the human body. Thought it was an interesting frame that might inspire other conversations, so I asked for his permission to share the revelations from our chat broadly.
When we think about the human body: its different parts, the way it develops and grows over time, and ultimately its maturation into an…
Sherman Leung
Investing @AlleyCorp, aspiring physician-investor/innovator
