How It’s Med How Its Med Team

Maintaining paper records📜 has never been fun, and Brendan Byrne thought, “Well I oughta do something about it”. And he did!
On part 1 of this week’s episode of Med Tech Talks, Geoffrey Ching sits down to chat with Brendan Byrne, Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of LifestyleRx. Brendan, who founded one of Canada’s largest cloud-based Electronic Medical Records (EMR) provider, chats candidly about his early days at Yale and McGill, wanting to pursue orthopaedics, and how Wolf Medical came into being.
 
Timestamps:
02:10-04:27 - Brendan tells us about his time at Yale and McGill, and how that shaped up his business outlook.
04:28-07:20 - Wanting to pursue orthopaedic surgery for a very long time, then not doing so, and the challenges that followed.
07:24-12:17 - Brendan tells the story behind Wolf Medical Systems.
12:18-17:03 - The rise and rise of Wolf Medical, and how it got bought out successfully, followed by a stint as VP at TELUS for Brendan.
17:03-18:08 - Back from sabbatical, and the things Brendan then learned after taking on the role of Chief Information Officer at TELUS.
18:08-21:55 - The differences between working at a start-up like Wolf Medical, and working at a big corporate entity like TELUS.

Engineers vs. Doctors. Is it actually that big of a conflict? Geof Auchinleck certainly does not agree. According to him, the two professions need to work very closely together for the increment of the healthcare system at large.
On part 2 of Med Tech Talks with Geof Auchinleck, he and our Geoff discuss his professional journey as a biomedical engineer, how he came to co-found Claris Healthcare, and the impact that it aims to create in countries with ageing populations.
 
Timestamps:
02:04-03:38 - Did the involvement of engineers ever irk the physicians? Geof gives his honest opinion about it.
03:39-04:38 - Geof’s “scotch-less” definition of biomedical engineering, for a five-year-old.
04:39-06:32 - The level of involvement of physicians in the process of biomedical engineers to improve the healthcare system.
06:35-08:03 - Geof’s professional journey- from Neoteric to retirement, and then coming out of retirement and founding Claris Healthcare.
08:04-14:52 - The innovative story of Claris Healthcare, from the co-founder himself.
14:53-16:19 - Geof explains the business behind Claris, and all it’s creativity to keep seniors informed about their health.
16:20-18:55 - Geof tells us about the personal gratification and his moments of pride in his line of work.
18:57-21:15 - One eye on the future - Geof’s intrigue with AI and its impact in the years to come.

Robots🤖 in surgery🩺 is a pretty normal thing now. But what about when they were introduced to the healthcare industry? How did it happen? And how has technology, as a whole, impacted the healthcare industry?
On episode 72 of Med Tech Talks, we sit down with Geof Auchinleck, the co-founder and CEO of Claris Healthcare, and find out the answers to the questions above. Geof, “the barcode guy”, shares his stories from the 70s and 80s and sheds light on how far the healthcare industry has come since the introduction of technology.
 
Timestamps:
01:59-04:28 - First love, first job, first step towards the medical device field.
04:30-05:48 - Biomedical engineering then vs. Biomedical engineering now, in the words of Geof.
05:49-08:57 - Geof’s first ever project - robots in surgery, and the story behind it.
08:58-11:00 - The surgeons’ reactions to that robot, and other snippets from that historic feat of technology.
11:04-13:29 - Geof remembers his favourite projects and inventions over the years.
13:30-15:45 - Geof’s fascination with barcodes.
15:45-18:45 - The challenges and difficulties in the field of healthcare, and how Geof tackled them.
18:46-21:07 - How technological advancements has revolutionized the healthcare industry, and Geof explains how things used to be like back in the 70s and 80s.

How important is building connections with impactful VCs and having a refined recruitment process in Giovanni’s field? According to the man himself, it’s almost similar to building a medical device, with a plethora of intricacies involved in the process.
On part 2 of our conversation with Giovanni Lauricella, the Managing Partner of Lifeblood Capital, we find out more about his work and his process, as he highlights how important the minutest of details can be in his line of work.
 
Timestamps:
01:52-04:22- An explainer as to what Giovanni really does in the medical device industry.
04:24-09:14 - Realizing the gaps that start-ups face in getting funding, and stepping in to fill those gaps himself, Giovanni’s pivot towards acquiring funding for med-tech start-ups.
09:14-11:42 - The process of recruiting, and the nitty-gritties of the trade.
11:50-16:20 - “Money + People = Milestones.” Giovanni’s primary equation for a successful business.
16:35-19:00 - What’s in a name? The story behind the name “Lifeblood Capital”.
19:10-23:27 - The impact and influence of money, as Giovanni analogises raising capital as being equal to a marriage.
23:33-25:13 - Big things to look forward to for Giovanni, coming up in 2023.

A four-year-degree in finance. Followed by a never ending degree in extravagant life experiences, from the “University of Life”. That’s the short version of Giovanni Lauricella’s incredible academic and professional journey so far, and it is an exhilarating conversation to have.
On part 1 of our latest episode of Med Tech Talks, Geoffrey Ching sits down to chat with Giovanni Lauricella, Managing Partner of Lifeblood Capital, as he tells us about his absolutely incredible life story, and how a curly wig has defined the first question he’s always asked in a professional setting.
 
Timestamps: 
01:11-06:40 - A short story about hair and wigs.
06:57-10:11 - From snowy beginnings in Buffalo to the Sunshine state of Florida.
10:17-16:17 - Dabbling in finance, after graduating early from college, and an impromptu trip to Costa Rica.
16:18-19:16 - Getting a job out of a vacation in Costa Rica, and how the tables turned for Giovanni in the span of two weeks.
19:18-20:22 - Coming back home after working with a “ghost!?” and then starting and selling a medical tourism company in Colombia.
20:23-22:36 - Giovanni’s entry into the medical device field, via South America and a short layover at a Starbucks in Florida.
22:42-26:58 - Going back to school and tackling a job and a distance-learning degree at the same time.
26:58-31:20 - Giovanni explains his love for regulatory affairs in the medical device industry, and his absolute fascination with the field.

What do stories about Christopher Plummer, CityTV, and saving lives at scale share in common? 🤔 Easy: storyteller extraordinaire Leah Sarich.
This time around, Leah Sarich, Head of Story at Thin Air Labs joined Geoffrey Ching to chat about the role of stories in health VC. They chatted not only about Leah’s journey through journalism making news you can use, but also about how to make strong health tech pitches, what it takes to translate knowledge well, and why going to the “dark side” with communications in venture capital to save lives at scale might not be so bad after all.
Discover more at - https://www.howitsmed.com/
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Timestamps:
01:39-03:13 - Christopher Plummer - Leah’s favorite story - but the fact that she favours the variety of stories she helped tell throughout her career.
04:05-04:42 - Summary of what Leah does, as explained to a five-year-old.
04:43-05:31 - Leah’s journey into journalism and broadcast journalism.
05:47-06:56 - How Leah found her way into health journalism.
07:01-08:04 - What has kept Leah in health reporting - teaching “news you can use”.
08:15-09:49 - What is unique about health journalism? Leah loves the knowledge translation - specifically the challenge and building trust.
09:50-11:00 - How to maintain trust in journalism despite the pace mandatory in the field. Leah states that getting it right and taking time to understand how to best convey the information accurately to a lay audience.
11:00-13:08 - How do you make stories most compelling and relatable? Leah asks for a patient from a study/with a certain disease so that she has the patient's perspective, but finds it a common problem that she has to rein in the jargon that experts speak in.
13:08-14:31 - Why it is helpful for a journalist to stay on the same beat for a long time - the body of knowledge for a beat is quite useful to do journalism efficiently and effectively.
14:31-16:08 - “I like to say that I specialize in relationship building” - the importance of building relationships in storytelling.
16:09-19:11 - Leah reveals the pivot that she took, like other journalists have done, to go into communications. The twist? Her pivot was into healthcare venture capital. Leah tells the story of how and why she joined Thin Air Labs.
19:12-20:47 - What does Leah do with Thin Air Labs? Leah shares the importance of storytelling with the companies and investors under the Thin Air Labs umbrella.
20:48-22:22 - What’s a story to a pitch? Leah shares some news you can use when it comes to making a pitch golden.
22:23-24:43 - Why emotion when data is so important? Leah reiterates the importance of emotion in remembering start-ups and their pitches.
24:48-26:46 - Leah details her feelings about “going over to the dark side” in communication, and the role of scalability in her decision process.
27:01-29:09 - Leah’s love of challenge makes it easy for her to absorb the new language of VC, despite the remarkable differences between VC and broadcast journalism jargon.
29:09-31:13 - Where are young journalists going? Is communications to more travelled path now with the fall from grace of broadcast journalism as a major industry?
31:27-33:00 - How can journalists make the leap into VC to help companies make scalable impact more efficiently and effectively?
33:00-34:15 - What is the difference between a communicator and a marketer? Leah explains that the two specialists target different outcomes, and how she classifies the work she does.