In season 6 Episode 6 I am delighted to welcome Graham Walker, MD to the podcast. Dr Walker is an emergency physician by clinical background who practices in San Francisco, completing his medical school training at Stanford University School of Medicine. He also majored in social policy as an undergraduate and has had a life long interest in software development and digital technology. Today he combines these interests and skills in his clinical and non-clinical roles.

Graham is the co-director of Advanced Development at The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG), which delivers care for Kaiser Permanente’s 4.6 million members in Northern California. At TPMG, Graham works on practical AI development, commercialization, partnerships, and technology transformation under the Chief Innovation Officer. As a clinical informaticist, he also leads emergency and urgent care strategy for KP’s electronic medical record.

With an appetite and aptitude for tech innovation and entrepreneurship Dr Walker created and founded MDCalc as a resident, a free online clinical decision support tool many clinicians including myself have been using for years now, indeed MDCalc turned 20 this month.

More recently Graham co-founded the platform and community Offcall with a mission to bring joy back to medicine and facilitate contract transparency and financial literacy for US medical practitioners.

These two online resources are dedicated to helping physicians globally. In his free time Graham writes about the intersection of AI, technology, and medicine, and created The Physicians’ Charter for Responsible AI, a practical guide to implementing safe, accurate, and fair AI in healthcare settings.

In this conversation I have an opportunity to explore Dr Walkers perspective at the intersection of AI, technology and medicine and revisit some emerging themes from season 6 in relation to leading change and innovation in complex, siloed healthcare systems. We discuss the challenges of communicating change efforts in this context and Graham shares his practical pearls for elevating clinical voices and translating information across disparate stakeholder groups.

With a unique leadership role in his own organisation in this space I was keen to explore his perspectives on creating opportunities for intrapreneurship. Dr Walker is a globally respective clinical voice on AI in healthcare and we discuss the perils and promise of AI , the Physician Charter for responsible use of AI in medicine and his Offcall survey and pending report on physicians views on the technology application and implementation in medicine ( now published and linked below)

Finally it is Graham's mission to bring joy and humanity back to medicine and to use technology responsibly to augment the clinician experience and skillset enabling safer and higher quality care that is the major draw for me. Thank you Dr Walker for you work which has global relevance and reach.

Links / References:

https://drgrahamwalker.com

https://www.offcall.com

The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or other official organisations.

I'm delighted to be back with S6 E9 and to welcome Associate Professor Vikram Palit to the podcast. Vikram is a Paediatric Respiratory Physician by clinical background and a Senior Lecturer in Health Systems science. He has held senior leadership roles across academia, clinical medicine and health services in Australia and the United Kingdom. He is also the founder and CEO of ConsultMed https://www.consultmed.co/about-us/ Consultmed brings together his passion for healthcare and embracing technology to deliver better outcomes for his patients. When he is not in a team huddle, a design workshop or doing a solution demo, you can find him quietly unplugging fax machines in hospitals and clinics near you. Indeed in this episode he makes a compelling case to #axethefax.

In this conversation I have an opportunity to dive deeper into Vik's journey so far as clinician, health systems scientist and entrepreneur trying to solve real world clinical problems with modern technology solutions.

He discusses his previous academic studies and practical on the job exposure to health systems change, value-based care and digital health in the UK NHS and how this served as a catalyst for his founder story.

We learn more about the nuts and bolts of Consultmed including the core offering Advice and Guidance and how this can positively impact the healthcare referral landscape. We reference the recent Grattan Report on specialist referrals and the RACGP Heath of the Nation Report 2025.

Vik discusses the application and potential of embedding AI tools in the Consultmed platform and where he sees the future opportunities of the technology. We revisit past podcast themes of the challenges of clinical entrepreneurship and "intra"preneurship and his insights as a CEO and founder in this space. His passion, energy and mission-driven dedication to his work and team permeates this entire conversation and I look forward to following the next chapter of the Consultmed story. Thank you Vik!

Links References:

https://www.consultmed.co/about-us/

https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Grattan-Institute-Special-Treatment.pdf

https://www.racgp.org.au/FSDEDEV/media/documents/Health-of-the-Nation-2025.pdf

Vik's book/ article recommendations:

https://londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk/books/implementing-value-based-healthcare/

https://hbr.org/2013/10/the-strategy-that-will-fix-health-care

The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or other official organisations.

In S6 E8 I am delighted to welcome Associate Professor Bhavesh Patel to the podcast. Dr Patel is a senior paediatric surgeon at The Queensland Children's hospital with over two decades of experience in paediatric and neonatal, colorectal and urological surgery. He is the Queensland State-wide Clinical Lead for Surgical Quality Improvement through his appointment at Clinical Excellence Queensland. As an Associate Professor he teaches students at several medical schools, and provides state-wide education to nursing staff and other medical professionals. He trains future surgeons, and his research spans across a number of fields. Bhavesh also has interests in digital health, technology, health literacy and human factors in health care.

In this conversation I have the opportunity to learn more about his work and the different hats Bhavesh now wears in his clinical, executive and educator roles. We discuss the evolution of his work in quality and safety and the systems thinking lens he applies to complex problem solving in healthcare. Bhavesh share his personal and professional journey and development and the impact of coaching on his ability to harness his ideas and efforts, gaining confidence and focus in recent years.

I was particular keen to explore his creative approach to digital innovation in patient communication including infographics and his recent work in building an experimental AI avatar.

We do well to cover a lot of ground here but I still left this conversation feeling I had peeled only a few layers of the onion, and the brilliant, curious mind of this creative clinician. There will have to be an encore!

Finally Bhavesh gives a taster for his keynote presentation at the 2025 Creative Careers in Medicine conference and listeners who missed the conference will be able to access the recordings when released ( details below).

Links / references:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbhaveshpatel/

https://www.instagram.com/handofasurgeon/?hl=en

CCIM conference - recording link with be listed when available:

https://ccim2025.my.canva.site/

Bhavesh's book recommendations:

If Disney Ran Your Hospital Fred Lee

https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/the-almanack-of-naval-ravikant/

The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or other official organisations.