First in Human

David Hindin
  • 0.0 (0)
  • MEDICINE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

First in Human is a podcast about the stories, sparks, and spirit of health innovation. Hosted by Dr. David Hindin - a trauma surgeon, storyteller, and health technology strategist - each episode explores the human side of breakthrough ideas in medicine. From the first sketch on a napkin to the first patient helped, we go behind the scenes with the founders, clinicians, and creative minds pushing healthcare forward. Whether you're in medicine, tech, design, or just curious about how change happens in complex systems, this show offers an honest, inspiring look at what it takes to build something that could save a life.

  1. 3 DAYS AGO

    Seeing Without Cutting: The Bet to Reinvent Skin Biopsies

    What if diagnosing skin lesions didn’t require a scalpel — or even a biopsy at all? In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Gabriel Sanchez, MIT-trained engineer, Stanford PhD, and founder and CEO of Enspectra Health. Early in his engineering career at Stanford, Gabriel began to see the limits of powerful imaging technologies that never made it beyond the lab. Instead of letting that work remain siloed, he set out to bring it into real clinical care. Gabriel tells the story of shrinking a room-sized microscope into a deployable medical device, and why he believes skin pathology is overdue for the same non-invasive transformation that reshaped radiology decades ago. We talk about the 150-year-old biopsy workflow that still defines dermatology, the massive bottlenecks it creates, and why so many attempts to change it have fallen short. Along the way, Gabriel shares what it really takes to introduce a brand-new imaging modality to the FDA, why studying past failures matters more than chasing hype, and how timing, patience, and persistence shape long innovation arcs. If you’ve ever wondered how scientific insight becomes real-world impact — or how medicine’s most entrenched habits actually change — this conversation offers a rare look inside the journey. Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Check out Enspectra Health's Webpage: https://www.enspectrahealth.com/ Connect with Gabriel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-sanchez-a6719837/

    51 min

  2. 27 JAN

    The Doctor Shaping a Menopause Startup Changing Care for Millions

    Menopause isn’t gentle. For many women, it’s a physiological shockwave — flipping sleep, mood, metabolism, cognition, sexual health, and long-term disease risk all at once. And all too often, the healthcare system’s response has essentially been: “live with it.” In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Mindy Goldman, a UCSF gynecologist and nationally recognized leader in menopause and cancer survivorship care, whose career took an unexpected turn from academic medicine into the heart of a fast-scaling women’s health startup. What began as deeply personal loss and years of clinical frustration evolved into something much larger: helping shape Midi, a menopause startup now delivering insurance-covered care to women across all 50 states.Dr. Goldman shares the formative moments that changed her trajectory, from losing her closest friend to breast cancer, to realizing how many women are dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told to simply “push through” midlife symptoms. We unpack the care gap hiding in plain sight, why menopause became a systemic blind spot in modern medicine, and how Midi is using telehealth, clinical rigor, and scale to rebuild women’s healthcare from the inside out.This is a conversation about listening to hard experiences, translating clinical insight into infrastructure, and what happens when medicine meets venture-scale ambition. If you care about health innovation that makes a massive impact, this episode shows what it takes — and why it matters now more than ever. Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Check out Midi's website: https://www.joinmidi.com/

    54 min

  3. 20 JAN

    Why This CEO Is Building an EKG for the Gut - Literally

    You might be surprised to learn that a particle physicist — someone who knows how to work with massive particle accelerators slamming atoms together — is building a company focused on a sticker that sits on your abdomen. But once you dig a bit deeper, it makes perfect sense. In this episode of First in Human, I talk with Steve Axelrod, a longtime physicist turned CEO, whose entire career has been built on pulling meaningful signal out of noise. It's a skill set that's taken him from nuclear sensors at Yale all the way to Silicon Valley, ultimately as a medtech CEO working on a deeply personal problem. And along the way, what Steve discovered was unsettling: when it comes to gut-related illness, doctors often can’t measure what patients are feeling. Tests look normal. Symptoms come and go. And care is often based on educated guesswork. So Steve did what physicists do: he started measuring. We talk about why he’s now building a wearable “EKG for the gut,” how listening to electrical rhythms over days - not minutes - changes what we see, and why this approach could reshape how doctors understand chronic symptoms, recovery after surgery, and what’s really happening inside the body. This is a story about physics, family, and what happens when someone trained to study the universe turns their attention inward - and finally starts listening. Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Check out G-Tech's website: https://www.gtechmedical.com/  Connect with Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveaxelrodphd/

    44 min

  4. 13 JAN

    How this ICU Doctor Decides What Companies to Build

    What does it really take to decide what’s worth building in healthcare? In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Dr. Ryan Van Wert, ICU physician and serial health tech founder, to unpack how he’s built multiple companies by starting with the most vulnerable moments in medicine. From rethinking sedation for patients on ventilators, to ensuring people’s end-of-life wishes are honored, to helping adult children care for aging parents, Ryan shares how clinical pain points become startup decisions and how needs-first thinking guides what he builds. We talk about Stanford Biodesign, the discipline of needs-first innovation, and what years in the ICU teach you about human cost, timing, and focus. Ryan walks through how specific problems rose to the top during rigorous needs-finding, how his thinking has evolved across Awair, Vynca, and now Kin, and what he looks for before committing to build. If you’re a clinician, founder, or builder wondering how to choose the right problem to work on and how to build with both rigor and empathy, this conversation offers a rare, grounded look at how real healthcare companies actually get started and why that decision matters more than anything that comes next.Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Visit Kin Concierge online: https://www.kinconcierge.com/

    48 min

  5. 6 JAN

    Nothing in the OR Was Built For His Patient.

    It’s one thing to talk about innovation. It’s another to realize, mid-surgery, that nothing in the room was designed for your patient.In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Dr. James Wall, pediatric surgeon, serial health tech founder, and VP of Product Management and Associate Medical Officer at Intuitive, to trace his journey. It's a career that's been shaped by building where the market is small and the stakes are high. From completing advanced training in minimally invasive surgery in France to launching multiple startups, to leading pediatric innovation at Stanford, and now - most recently - helping guide the future of surgical robotics, James has spent decades navigating the tension between impact and scale. The conversation spans pediatric devices, biodesign, venture economics, and the future of surgery. But at its core, it’s about learning how to build things that matter when scale isn’t guaranteed—and why the hardest markets can produce the clearest thinking about what patients truly need. Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Connect with James: - James on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswallmd/

    43 min

  6. 30/12/2025

    $150M Raised. A Blood Test Reshaping Sepsis Care.

    Sepsis is one of medicine’s most dangerous guessing games. Patients arrive with vague symptoms. Clinicians rely on instinct. And too often, the ones who look “okay” are the ones who crash. In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Dr. Tim Sweeney, physician-scientist and founder of Inflammatix, to trace the unlikely path from a tense moment at a medical conference to a breakthrough FDA-cleared diagnostic now shaping real clinical decisions. Tim shares why leaving residency was the hardest choice he’s ever made, how years of rejected grants pushed him toward entrepreneurship, and what it took to raise more than $150M to build a diagnostic tool medicine didn’t yet have. We go inside Trivarity, a blood test that reads the immune system itself to help doctors decide whether a patient has a bacterial infection, a viral infection, or something else entirely and how sick they’re about to become. Along the way, we talk about the limits of clinical intuition, why sepsis isn’t  one disease, and how better decisions, made earlier, can change outcomes. This is a conversation about conviction, risk, and what becomes possible when we stop guessing and start listening to the biology.Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Learn more about Inflammatix: https://inflammatix.com/Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-sweeney-a6589594/

    46 min

  7. 16/12/2025

    Reinventing the Stethoscope: The Eko Health Story

    What does it take to reinvent one of the most iconic tools in medicine? In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Connor Landgraf, co-founder and CEO of Eko Health, to trace the unlikely journey from childhood tinkerer to building a digital-enabled stethoscope that’s quietly reshaping how clinicians listen, learn, and diagnose. Connor shares how a gradual realization in a Berkeley classroom led him to challenge a centuries-old design paradigm. Why do we still rely on a hollow tube and human hearing alone to evaluate heart and lung disease? From building early prototypes (which doctors promptly rejected), to the long, patient work of developing data, algorithms, and trust, this is a story about respecting medicine’s traditions while carefully pushing it forward. If you’ve ever wondered how real medical innovation gets started, or how technology can augment human judgment without erasing it, this conversation offers a rare, thoughtful look at what it really takes to change medicine from the inside out. Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Connect with Connor: - Connor's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorlandgraf/ - Eko Health webpage: http://ekohealth.com/

    43 min

  8. 09/12/2025

    A Deadly Lung Disease, a Eureka Moment, and the Startup Ready to Change Everything

    How do you fight a disease that hides until it’s almost too late? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Maria Artunduaga, founder of Samay, whose work began with a moment she still remembers clearly: a conversation about air trapping, a flashback to high-school physics, and the realization that sound might reveal early changes inside the lungs before symptoms appear at all. That spark - in a problem inspired by the loss of her grandmother to a COPD exacerbation - sent her down a path to rethink how we detect danger in one of the world’s deadliest respiratory diseases.Maria shares the unlikely early days: late-night experiments in her living room, patients welcoming her into their homes, and the first hints that a simple wearable patch could capture some of the insights that previously required an $80,000, phone booth-sized machine. We explore why respiratory diseases have been neglected by med tech, what makes COPD so deadly, and how a founder from Colombia is building technology designed for the people most often left behind. This conversation is about invention, persistence, and what becomes possible when a eureka moment meets a problem the world can no longer ignore. Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Connect with Maria: - Maria's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drartunduaga/ - Samay webpage: https://www.samayhealth.com/home

    52 min
See All (20)

About

First in Human is a podcast about the stories, sparks, and spirit of health innovation. Hosted by Dr. David Hindin - a trauma surgeon, storyteller, and health technology strategist - each episode explores the human side of breakthrough ideas in medicine. From the first sketch on a napkin to the first patient helped, we go behind the scenes with the founders, clinicians, and creative minds pushing healthcare forward. Whether you're in medicine, tech, design, or just curious about how change happens in complex systems, this show offers an honest, inspiring look at what it takes to build something that could save a life.

Information

  • Creator
    David Hindin
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 David Hindin
  • Show Website
    First in Human

You Might Also Like