What does being a great medical advisor in tech really mean? Flo Health Inc.’s Chief Medical Officer Anna Klepchukova explains
As Flo’s Chief Medical Officer, I now head up four teams within Flo’s Medical and Scientific team, with more than 10 medical advisors working to ensure all information shared by Flo is clinically safe, scientifically validated, and medically sound. Here, I explain what the role of a medical advisor involves and outline the type of candidate who might become successful at this role, along with the benefits and challenges involved.
What is a medical advisor in healthtech?
As we already know, different industries — like finance, health care, and agriculture, for example — create solutions to help people. When technology emerged, new industries appeared as a result — like fintech (finance plus technology), agrotech (agriculture and technology), and healthtech (health plus technology) to help solve problems.
A medical advisor in healthtech is a person who helps to overcome health issues with technological solutions. This means that not only do they know how to treat or diagnose cancer, for example, but they know how to improve the current diagnostic process of cancer with new technologies too.
This means that a medical advisor in healthtech is ultimately a person who knows both the clinical side of things along with technological solutions — it’s quite unique.
What kind of skills or qualifications are required to be a medical advisor?
Let’s use Flo as an example. Flo is a health-tracking app, so users log their periods and how they feel, and we analyze the data coming in from users. We then build different features that help users solve various problems. For example, they might log symptoms like a headache, so we’d help them to understand what the possible reasons for a headache could be, creating content that gives them more information.
In order to build this, you need a medical advisor who has:
Medical knowledge with practical experience — Somebody who has never consulted patients with headaches before won’t be much use to solving people’s problems remotely with all the limitations technology has.
Product mindset — the ability to be creative and come up with a solution on how to take information from medical guidelines and turn it into a digital product
Things a medical advisor should consider before applying for a role in healthtech
In my experience, medical advisors also need to be great presenters. Their role involves regularly translating medical knowledge into a product “language” to present with, which isn’t easy because not everybody working within the company will have medical knowledge. So sometimes, you have to use examples from fintech or more traditional industries to explain complex medical concepts. So in that sense, advisors should have ownership over their ideas and be very results-driven.
What’s also different in healthtech compared to other industries is that it’s important to have a good understanding of not only what you’re doing but why. In this field, it’s important to understand the business metrics you are trying to improve. So instead of blindly saying, “OK, I will create five articles,” you should instead be asking, “Why am I writing these articles? Is it to improve retention and engagement, or is it for monetization?” Asking those questions and having a passion for improvement is key.
Working in a tech startup is also a very competitive market, and things change every three months. New competitors arrive, legislation changes, and new technologies emerge compared to more traditional industries like medicine. It’s why we look for people who always want to improve things — people who challenge the existing situation and propose new solutions to solve problems.
Why could working for a startup like Flo be a smart choice for a medical advisor?
It’s important to note that becoming a medical advisor is not necessarily a good move for everyone with a medical degree. If you like the idea of working in the same hospital for 30 years, taking the same bus every day, and living in the same city with limited change or disruption, this is not the role for you. But if, in medical school, you had diverse interests and found yourself getting restless doing the same thing all the time, it could be a good move. People who are attracted to startups are typically people who are comfortable in stressful, constantly changing environments, as well as being creative.
Ultimately, this is a job for people who feel something is missing in their clinical practice. Because startups and healthtech companies typically pay more than the traditional medical industry, some people come for money. While it’s a good reason to be attracted to a job, money shouldn’t be the only reason. If you’re somebody who likes taking the same route to the same place day in and day out, and you’re not stress-resilient, even the biggest salary would not compensate for the stress of ambiguity and uncertainty that comes with a tech startup environment.
The best and most challenging parts of the job
For me, the best part is seeing how your ideas are turned into a product. You get to see them released and watch millions of women start using them. I found that a big responsibility too, of course. When I joined Flo, we already had more than 100 million users, and I quickly realized that 100 million people were reading what I wrote, for example. So there’s an element of significant exposure which I find very rewarding. As a medical person, you’re creating something that makes an impact on lives all over the world.
Additionally, I find the role constantly challenging. I’d describe working in a startup as walking on an escalator that’s going much faster than you in the other direction, which means you need to grow very quickly, especially if the startup is successful and growing. You might operate at a local level initially, then globally, and be constantly climbing and experiencing higher expectations. I wasn’t an expert in content or localisation when I joined, but I had to learn quickly. This sort of environment is very stimulating for growth, but it’s also very challenging — it’s like an endless marathon. And you can’t stop because if you do, the company will outperform you, and you’ll be left behind. So it’s good but can be challenging, too.
As a medical advisor, you have to be incredibly resilient to criticism and rejection. Say the product team asks you to come up with a pregnancy mode plan. You might have 10 brilliant ideas, but none of them are liked or approved. Now, if you’ve spent a long time in medical school or practicing as a doctor, you’ll suddenly find yourself in a completely new situation where your opinion might not be the most important since it’s the product person who defines what to do and how to monetize it. You have to voice and protect your opinions, finding evidence to back up your suggestions. This role means taking off your “crown” and becoming humble enough to realize that while you might have been the “best” in a medical space, this is medicine plus tech, and you’re probably not the smartest person in the room anymore.
Parting advice for people considering this kind of career route
The piece of advice that I wish somebody had given me is that you will meet a lot of unknowns in this field, and the best thing you can do is to ask people for advice. Be it people who might have seen similar situations or just different or smarter people. Find advisors and mentors. Let’s say you join a healthtech startup, and you are the only medical person there. Then go and find another medical director on LinkedIn and ask for help.
Initially, I struggled to solve all the problems I encountered until I realized I could ask questions! Then I started to find advisors and asked them how they might solve certain issues. It was magic because most of the problems were similar, and others had already undergone similar processes. So be brave enough to ask people questions and build a support network — that’s my best advice.
Flo is looking for a Senior Medical Advisor — don’t miss your chance and apply now.
