From medical graduate to CMO in 3 years— Dr. Mariane Melo
Just 3 years after graduating from medical school, Dr. Melo shares her journey to becoming the Chief Medical Officer for DemDx and Forbes 30 under 30 (Science and Healthcare).
Tell us about DemDx and your journey thus far.
M: My journey with DemDx started in 2016 when I met DemDx’s CEO, Lorin Gresser, during my Neurosurgery exchange at King’s College London. [Dr. Melo started as a content manager when she first joined the company in 2016. Whilst in university, she also co-founded Pharmaview, a company developing vaccines against cocaine addiction. Soon after graduation from medical school in 2018, she took on the role of Medical Director at DemDx and became the CMO just 2 years later.]
DemDx is a platform that combines AI technologies with medical expertise. We are making doctors’ additional years of experiences and knowledge more widely accessible, to be used at the right time, at the right place, but equally enabling increased frontline clinical responsibility amongst all healthcare professionals that are not doctors.
The tool offers complete transparency of reasoning to practitioners: its graphical user interface guides frontline practitioners through the patient journey, without the need for any pre-set ideas of what conclusion they are looking for. It allows the user to see why questions are being asked, to rule different conditions in or out of a working clinical hypothesis, and ultimately review the entire process from start to finish.
DemDx started off as an educational app, but it has grown to support frontline triage services and tackle several healthcare inefficiencies across the globe. In London, our platform has been used as a nurse triage tool in Moorfields Eye Hospital A&E. In Rwanda, it helps to speed up training and support clinical offices in hospitals.
In 2020, we were awarded £1.1M to enhance our technology and evaluate the DemDx ophthalmology platform, as part of the Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award.
What inspired you to get into MedTech after graduating?
M: My main inspiration to get into MedTech was the potential impact it could make on people’s lives as compared to the role of a doctor. Also, I love the dynamic nature of the tech industry, where you are encouraged to identify things that could be done better and then change them by yourself.
How did you make your CV stand out?
M: My CV stood out after I started joining Hackathons as a hobby. These competitions improved my design thinking and taught me how to work with people from both tech and business backgrounds. [Dr. Melo won a few awards such as the UltraHack in Finland (2017) and MIT Grand Hack (2018) during medical school]. More recently, I went back to Boston (virtually), and my team won the MIT COVID Hack (2020).
You have to be ready to sell your idea/product anywhere, anytime, and for different types of audiences.
What did you wish you had known before starting your journey in the MedTech industry?
M: I wish I had developed my public speaking skills better. You have to be ready to sell your idea/product anywhere, anytime, and for different types of audiences. Along the way, I have improved my presentation skills and storytelling, but I still get nervous for important presentations. Basic business knowledge, which we don’t learn at medical school, would have been very helpful as well.
What challenges have you faced as CMO and how did you overcome them?
M: When you are developing new technologies that change the way people are used to working, you will find behavioural resistance to adopt the new technology. It is a very big challenge and the users have to see the value of that technology on their workflow to overcome this initial resistance.
From the concept to the final platform, we engaged with healthcare professionals, patients, commissioners and policymakers to ensure that we are building a product that is useful, safe and enjoyable to use. It has worked so far, but it’s an ongoing process, and we are constantly improving the product with the feedback we receive.
What is your leadership style and how has it worked for you?
M: My leadership style is collaborative, where I seek out a diversity of opinions and ideas among the team to build strategies and solve problems. It has worked very well for our team. The information is shared organically, and everyone takes responsibility for the whole product/task.
Do you have any final advice for other medics who would like to venture into the MedTech scene?
M: Many people think that you need to know how to code or have deep statistical knowledge to join a Medtech company. This is not true. All you need is a passion to improve healthcare, and creativity to solve complex problems. Being tech-enthusiastic, understanding how technology works and how you can apply them to solve a problem might help to put yourself forward. However, most of the other skills can be learnt on the job.
Moving from a traditional medical career to an entrepreneurship career is a big change. Tasting it before making any big decisions may be a good idea.
There are several opportunities to get involved as many health technology startups are in need of clinical input. It could be either be an internship or a steering group to support the development of new projects or, better yet, you might want to develop your own ideas. A good starting point is to join hackathon competitions, as I did.
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About the author
Jaclyn Tan is a fifth year medical student at UCL with special interests in healthcare leadership and policy. She has a vision to empower healthcare professionals to sit at the board table, make their voices heard, and impact real change within the healthcare industry. During her spare time, she serves as a freelance journalist and takes painting, poetry, and jazz pretty seriously!
