Unveiling a New Paradigm in Healthcare and Leadership with Dr. Pippa Shulman

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey, Uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast and I'm your host, John Gallagher. Today I've got a very special guest and friend joining us, Dr Pippa Schulman. Pippa is the Chief Medical Officer at Medically Home, a revolutionary healthcare organization that aims to decentralize hospital care and bring it into the comfort of patients' homes. She is triple-boarded in family medicine, preventive medicine and hospice and palliative care, which just means she's really smart, and I love hanging out and learning from smart people. In this episode, Pippa shares her insights on the challenges faced by caregivers in the healthcare system, the importance of human interaction in patient care and the urgent need for innovative changes in how we approach healthcare in this country. While her specialty is medicine, make no mistake, Pippa is also an Uncommon Leader. In this episode, she also discusses her personal journey and how she became driven to care about people and how we as leaders can do our part to make a difference, not only in healthcare, but also in the lives of others. Everyone's going to enjoy and learn from this episode, so let's get started. Dr Pippa Schulman, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. It's great to have you on the show and great to reconnect with you after so long. How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 1:19

Thanks, john. It's great to be here. I'm doing very well here. At the beginning of fall always feels like a time of renewal, actually, even though the trees are going to change soon.

Speaker 1: 1:29

No, they'll change quick up there in Boston, too, so they change really soon. Hey, I'm looking forward to this conversation today, though, and getting a chance for those listeners to learn a little bit more about you and what you have going on in healthcare and, frankly, what you have going on in your leadership growth as well. But I'll start you off with the same first question that I start off every first-time guest on the podcast, and that's to tell me a story from your youth that still impacts who you are as a person or as a leader today.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Well, that's actually an easy one. My wife says I'm annoying because I have known that I wanted to be a doctor since I was a little kid and I never varied from that path. So when I was in the second grade I was on the playground at recess and our school was a K through 8 elementary school, junior high and the eighth grade boys were roughhousing and pushed me off the slide. I don't think there was malicious intent, but the ground in my arm met and I ended up in the emergency department that afternoon and what I remember from that experience is the sheer awe of this magical place, which is not, I don't think, a normal reaction. But my mom always said you didn't even cry, what is wrong with you? But I saw this team of people working together and moving quickly and opening cabinets and I'm on this table and I'm a little kid and the lights are shining and I just thought how can I spend more time here Now? I definitely had my share of injuries, but one should not hope to spend time in an emergency department as a patient. But it was really being drawn to this idea of a person comes in at a time of pain or suffering or vulnerability and you're able to intervene, and sometimes it's as easy as setting an arm in a cast, and sometimes it's just an ear and having a conversation, and so that was my calling to be a physician. So it's changed the course of my life.

Speaker 1: 3:33

The second grade.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Dumb boys in the second grade, yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:37

And never changed. Wow, that is quite a story to know right then and never changed all the way along, and that is actually pretty crazy, pippa, I always enjoyed working with it, the time we had together at Atreus Health in Boston and your innovative mind and the passion that you had for the work that you did. I am curious, just for the listeners they are leaders, they're looking to grow. They're on a lifelong growth journey From that time since we worked together with Seven or eight years ago. How are you different today? What do you have going on? How have you been with Pippa in the last seven or eight years?

Speaker 2: 4:08

Oh, thanks, john. Those were the fun times, truly, and I look back in the pre-COVID health system era. There was so much we didn't know. Right At that time I was still practicing primary care, as you know. I was, had run a lot of the clinical side of the population health programs at Harvard, vanguard and atreus, particularly for patients over 65, and had the opportunity to take over and run this innovation center. The organization had undergone a merger and really was committed to understanding new models of care, and it was an incredible time. I always joke that now it would be a transformation center, but back in, you know, 2015, 2014, 15, 16, it was innovation and we really got to play around with how care is delivered closer to patients, and my passion has always been care that's delivered into the home. What I learned, though, along that journey, as we were in our health system trying to make change and a system that I think is very, very forward thinking that I wanted to partner with folks to help us move initiatives along faster. That's actually how I came to, medically Home. I was looking for a partner in the hospital, at home space that could help us with the technology and logistics, because my organization didn't. And, by the way, no health system really has great expertise in those areas. I met the team from Medically Home back in 2016, right around the time we last had contact, and they partnered with us to help design, build, launch this model and start treating patients. All of a sudden, I was in this new environment where whenever we wanted to make a change for patients and rapid cycle changes If it was safe and it was legal the answer was always yes. That is such a fundamental shift from how the average health system operates. It's not their fault. It is a legacy of how they're built and operated and owned and that even the most forward health systems really get stuck and it can be hard to move them quickly. Getting into this startup world and understanding we could partner with systems, we could really try some incredible things and make huge changes much, much faster. That's really the path I came on. I jumped over to Medically Home full time and have been leading I'm the Chief Medical Officer now and have been leading the clinical programs, innovation and all of our growth across the country in this idea of how we not just do hospital home but really opening up this world, of decentralizing acute care into the home so that we are able to go back to the first principles I learned at Atria. Patients want help when they have a problem, they want to be known, they want to maintain their autonomy and they want something that has low life impact. You probably remember that, seeing it on the wall of the innovation center, the big triangle.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Absolutely yes, I do Exactly.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Now what we do at Medically Home is design interventions, design ways for patients to be able to have that care. We've partnered with some incredible health systems and we're still working with Atria today. It's just been a really fun and wonderful journey.

Speaker 1: 7:41

I love that. Thanks for sharing it. Let's get real nuts and bolts here for just a little bit. Explain to the listeners what hospital at home is.

Speaker 2: 7:54

Thanks for asking, because a lot of people confuse what this is. The concept is so simple 20 to 30% of what is in a bricks and mortar hospital today can be safely cared for at home. What am I talking about here? If you are going into a hospital because you are acuely ill and what you need is treatment and monitoring and care like that, we can do that at home. I believe that there is a future where hospitals are going to be centers of surgical care and ICU care and trauma, but that most other things we can move into the home. That's the fundamental idea. There's also, to run a hospital, you need ways to intervene on patients quickly. We're also doing emergency department care in the home and other types of care models to shore that up for patients in the home.

Speaker 1: 8:47

It's such an important thing. Again, we're going to get into some of these details in terms of how it affects the patient, how it affects the caregiver as well inside of this system, and then the sheer expense of being inside a brick and mortar hospital versus staying at home. It feels a little bit like that back to the future kind of thing in terms of the infamous home visit from your doctor. I'm going to assume that's not exactly what it is. Tell us a little bit about when you actually have a hospital at home. How do you set it up a hospital at home?

Speaker 2: 9:18

Yes, it's not Marcus Willoughby anymore.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Yes, Marcus Willoughby knows the name I was looking for.

Speaker 2: 9:21

No, I know it's a lot of people ask that, but it's that same caring idea. By moving care into a patient's home, you place that patient at the center of the care, truly at the center, where they are able to maintain autonomy and where I am a guest in their home. And I see all these things that I now know about them. The nuts and bolts are pretty elegant. There's three pillars that we think about. The first is you need a clinical team that understands how to deliver care at a distance, tethered to clinical folks in the home. Our physicians, our nurses are in a command center. They're able to remotely contact patients by video, by voice, by all different means of communication. They partner with caregivers in the home, including nurses, paramedics, therapists, etc. To provide the care that's needed at the bedside. So you have this really well-trained group of folks. We help do that training, we help system, set up command centers and really create that environment In the home. We need to make sure that whatever a patient needs, whatever that physician is ordered or that the patient requires, is delivered in a timeframe that would be equivalent to a hospital. We've sort of batched it into about 18 different service categories and it ranges from things like meals. When you're in a hospital, we feed you three times a day. Now, at home, you're free to decline that and eat your own food, but we will offer every patient in a hospital home program medically tailored meals. That's a small example. All the way up to EKGs, intravenous medicines, laboratory testing and imaging, which we can also do in the home All that has to be delivered in the appropriate timeframe. That's a really complex logistics map. It's wonderful and it's interesting. We need to make sure that folks who are going into the home are well-trained, they're credentialed, they're who they say they're going to be. All those pieces. And so what ties this all together is technology, and not technology for technology's sake, but technology that A sits in the background and helps dispatch and deploy services to the home in an efficient manner, but also that makes it easy for the patient to receive care. So redundant pathways of communication on patient requests. We know that when a patient reaches out to their care team, they are talking to a human in 18 to 20 seconds, measuring that it's. Do they want a video? Do they want to do it by phone? How do they want to do it? We want to make sure it operates in a disaster right, so an intractable power supply. We want to make sure that patients are required to bring things. We bring all the biometric equipment, all the devices and the connectivity right and that's tying together, that's the layer, that's tying it together all to care for that patient in the home.

Speaker 1: 12:18

Okay, hey, listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. I'm here to equip you and encourage you every step of the way. Okay, let's get back to the show Fantastic. I look at this and I look at the experience that my parents are going through right now. My mom is a caregiver, my dad is. You know, his health is failing. It seems like anytime I go home, he tries to stay up and do too much and, frankly, I end up taking him back to the emergency room on there because he does too much. He gets all worked up and he ends up in the hospital for a week and things like that happen, and you know the system to your point. Hey, you don't want to go to the emergency room on a Friday night. We know all those stories in terms of what's happening, things like that, but the idea of this hospital at home, I think, is phenomenal. Okay, so I want to ask, and especially from that again, because I am experiencing it as and I listened to a podcast recently. It says one in five Americans are caregivers of some sort. They're either caring for a spouse, they're caring for an elderly parent or they're caring for a child with a disability, and that is over burdensome for a system. And I can see, because of my knowledge of flow and things like that and waste, that I can see how hospital at home can be very powerful. But you mentioned you want that care. I've read this about what you've talked about on the journey that you would want for your family. So what should patients and caregivers, families, understand about hospital at home From a clinical perspective? Is it better care or is it just comfort care, if you will?

Speaker 2: 14:30

Wow, you teed that up really well, john. It is better care. The clinical outcomes in most cases are better. I mean there are studies out there showing hospital at home patients have lower mortality than patients in the bricks and mortar hospital. That's the ultimate outcome, right. But they have fewer episodes of delirium, falls, infection. Their functional status is better. You've probably seen thank you, by the way, for sharing the story with your dad You've probably seen he sounds like a fun, independent guy but that over the years the impact of each one of those hospitalizations chips away at somebody. And if we can keep that person home and getting the care they need and this is full intensity, acute care, this is not comfort care. This is not it's your time. We do this for patients. We care predominantly for adults. So we care for patients 18 to 104, right. But older folks do have a disproportionate benefit, because staying in your own environment, staying more active, being around the things and people that are most familiar to us, so important. Now that's the clinical picture. We hear over and over and over again from patients about how well cared for they felt, how they knew that whenever they had a question or a concern or a symptom, there was someone there to address it, and they compared that to the experience in the bricks and mortar hospital, where people were always gone, and doctors and nurses don't come to work in a hospital and want to be gone or do a bad job. It's the way it's structurally set up. You know that, right, if your job is a nurse's to hunt and gather all day, you're not spending time with patients, and we're making use of a full healthcare team so that we can have humans spending time with other humans. The final thing I'll say that's really important to us is the burden on caregivers, whether it's a child or a spouse, is very high when loved ones are sick, and we believe in hospital at home, that we can keep the burden low. We don't want caregivers at home to be giving them medical care. Right, we will bring folks in to do that. We want them to be the family and friends and support, and that's really important that this should be a respite for them as well. And so we know there's things like reduced travel time. Right, we, because we're doing a hybrid, high tech, high touch right, we can bring family caregivers to the bedside even if they live far away. We're developing ways that they can have access to know what's happening for their loved one in a day, versus in the hospital where you miss the doctor because they came by at six. You're not sure if they're coming by again. You're calling and calling for the nurse and can't reach them. You know we really want to make this a good experience. I've done it too. We've all done it right. I designed this for my family, and so we want to make this a completely different experience where you feel like you have the information and are part of that journey and can relax because your loved one is cared for and we know what's going on.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Bippo, I know your passion. I know it really well. I know how much you care about the people that you are trying to help on a regular basis, both those patients and those caregivers and, frankly, the staff that are providing that care. It's not a sales pitch, but I'd love to be in the room as you design some of the flows to make that work. Having said that, you've probably got a success story or two, without any hip of violations that it really touched you. With regards to that, can you share one with the listeners as to where that's really worked?

Speaker 2: 18:10

I would love to John I mentioned that before that I have a background. My practice was mostly geriatrics. Seeing the success in older patients was not a surprise to me. What was an incredible surprise to me is how powerful this model is for vulnerable communities. I think about patients who are often what we call duly eligible Eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. Usually that's because they're low income and they may have an issue that causes them to be on permanent disability. It's often a mental health issue or something else. People who live in circumstances that are challenging. We cared for we didn't care for them, but a health system partner of ours cared for and we supported the care of an individual who lived in a camper in his friend's yard. That's an okay living situation. That's where he lives. We want to make sure that he can get care there. This gentleman had walked out of multiple emergency departments because he felt disrespected by staff and didn't want to be locked up in the hospital when they were able to make a hospital at home work for this individual. This individual is challenging. This individual pushed everyone's buttons and really tried to push the team away. Something really powerful happened. Number one he got the medical care that he needed, which had been delayed and put off for so long. More importantly, there was a trust built between him and the medical team that opened the door for this to potentially happen again. Here's a guy who has very little in terms of resources and on the day of his discharge he said to his discharging team listen, if you ever need anything, you come to me and I will help you. That's just. The power of that story is in that we gave this person the ability to maintain their dignity, to be able to have the reactions they needed to have, and to not create this dynamic of the difficult patient or the non-compliant patient, but to really work, in what his circumstances were, to get him to a better functional state of health. I have seen that play out over and over and over again. That's where I get really excited about expanded access. This was also in a more rural community. I think about how we could do this in more rural communities, how we can do this for populations that are traditionally poorly served by our system. That includes communities of color. It includes poor communities. I get so amped up by this because, yes, this works amazingly well for folks with lots of resources, but it works even better for folks with very little.

Speaker 1: 21:02

Absolutely. I mean especially those that are even home by themselves as well.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Don't have a caregiver.

Speaker 1: 21:07

I can imagine that it's really like that.

Speaker 2: 21:11

Can I tell you one more story?

Speaker 1: 21:12

I'll just say I guess you could tell me 10. Go ahead Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:14

Yeah, because I love this and it made me think of your mom and dad. We had a wonderful. There was a couple and the husband was the caregiver for the wife. I might have gotten that backwards. She had dementia and he became short of breath and started coughing and didn't want to leave her. The health system we were partnering with we were able to deploy an EDN home service for this gentleman. In fact, he had pneumonia and was able to be cared for in his home, didn't need a hospitalization, but we could get him the care he needed. It was followed the next day. He could stay with his wife. This was right before the holiday time. He said to the team if I had had to go into the hospital before Christmas, if I couldn't have been there with my wife, she would have had to go into an institution and I don't know that I ever would have gotten her out. That's the kind of thing where we're able to support both members of the family and it can be challenging, but where it's so incredibly powerful that I just the team tells me stories every week. We start every leadership meeting with a patient story. We start every all hands of the patient story. We try to bring them to every meeting so that we remember the why of why we're doing this.

Speaker 1: 22:28

So I don't know. You were probably somehow in my parents' house although I know there's not a hospital system in West Virginia that does it because my mom did get pneumonia while she was caring for my dad and she couldn't go to the hospital to get checked out. She had to get to the doctor. He has early, I would make up. It's not been diagnosed, but he has early on. I know he does. Just by memory and things like that that are going on. So, yeah, the story touched on that. I got to believe you have plenty of those we do, and what I've read is that this hospital at home, over the time that you've been putting this through, it served over 25,000 patients.

Speaker 2: 23:02

I think we're almost at 27. 27.

Speaker 1: 23:05

Yeah you add them up quick. We need it to be 10 times that.

Speaker 2: 23:09

We do.

Speaker 1: 23:10

And what are the barriers to scaling this? People, I mean, that has got to believe in your part is what you have to deal with more on a daily basis than the actual care model itself.

Speaker 2: 23:22

Well, and this is the perfect conversation to talk about this because the barriers to scale, yes, logistics, but that's a problem that can be solved. Technology is a problem that we're ever iterating on and ever improving. There's two big barriers. We have the first one I'm going to cover quickly because I hate talking about it and that is the reimbursement system in this country.

Speaker 1: 23:45

B for service model. Kills us every time. Kills every time Now.

Speaker 2: 23:48

That being said, commercial payers are actually really bullish on hospital at home. They have seen how it can benefit them because of reduced readmission rates, reduced complications of hospitalization. But it's patchwork, right, and everyone thinks, oh, national payer X is excited about hospital at home. It must mean I can get it. And, as you well know, nope, actually it's a state by state this, that and the other thing. Cms Medicare does pay for hospital at home under this waiver that's valid through 2024. So we're in this whole regulatory piece and that creates uncertainty. Nobody likes uncertainty. I believe we will get a permanent payment. I believe we will tackle these insurance, these payers, one by one. But the biggest barrier is the culture of medicine right now, and that's both from the medical practitioner side, but also, quite frankly, from the patient or consumer side, right, who believe when I'm sick, I will go get fixed in a hospital, and fortunately, patients are much easier convinced that they shouldn't be in a hospital than physicians. So that's a, that's a that's a somewhat easier one. I'm not trying to be flipped, but we really have a culture where we bring folks into the hospital, we do things because we can and they're available to us, and so you see tremendous amounts of waste in the system, where we're ordering tests that have already been ordered, where we're ordering daily and multi-time of day labs that we don't need because they're not clinical actionable. But it it makes us feel comfortable. If we're doing something to patients and we've got a break, that's what we have to break. Now what? What? Endlessly, I mean. I laugh all the time because, even though the culture is the problem, every time I talk about hospital home in a group of clinicians, docs will come up to me be like I did this for my mom, I did this for my dad, I did this for my uncle, I did this for my dad. Doctors know they themselves and they don't want their family members to be in the hospital. We are showing them that now this could be true for everybody, but it's a big hurdle. It is the activation energy of culture change. It's no different than any other change in any other organization. That's what we're fighting. I think that's the biggest barrier right now.

Speaker 1: 26:06

Pip, I appreciate you sharing that again. But what I appreciate as well is not laying it all on the payment model. There's like things that what part of? We had a guy we used to work with named Gene Lindsey, who's CEO at Atreus Hall. He'd say what part of the problem am I? We are, as the system, we are as the consumer, part of the problem as we go forward through that. So I'm going to just steer just a little bit, shift just a little bit and talk to the leaders that are on the listening call again. Pip, you've become a leader. You've always been a leader. You've been of someone that's been out front. You've been someone who's been inspiring. You've been someone who's been encouraging, developing on your own, and this has not been an easy track for you. If you're at 20, almost 27,000 patients, 10% growth of what was in the papers that I read about that, there is progress, albeit slow progress. How have you remained resolute as a leader on this journey, facing those problems, knowing how difficult the are to overcome? What do you do to overcome those?

Speaker 2: 27:10

I mean, the first thing I do, the number one thing that keeps me excited and energized and going, is something I mentioned earlier, and that's the impact on people. That is the impact on our patients, and we keep the patient at the center of what we do every single day, and I can't stress that enough. It's your mission, and if you're not in healthcare, are you aligned with the mission of your organization? Because if you have mission alignment, you can do anything. I just can't stress that enough. And for us, our mission is exceptional care for patients every single day. So that's thing one. Thing two is that I see the excitement and the enthusiasm from the clinical teams when they get exposed to this. Yes, it can be slow, but we are seeing those numbers accelerate. Right. The first year we did this in 2017, I mean, I could have. Rafael, one of our founders, and my partner used to put a marble into a bowl every time we saw a patient and those marbles didn't add up very quickly. We had 100 marbles and we were all so excited to get to 100 patients. It feels like it took forever, right, and now we've accelerated fast enough that over 1,000 patients a month. We're really seeing more exhaustion, but I want to see it go faster. But as I see the enthusiasm from the clinical teams on the impact this has on their workforce and their patients, that's what I know. We are onto something, we will get there and you help me, your team in the past years helped me understand the adoption curve, that curve of innovation, and that we still need to cross the chasm right. We are not there yet, but we're learning. That's where we're getting right now and when we cross that chasm the acceleration is going to be huge.

Speaker 1: 29:09

Love it. Speaking of that, let's bring the steer back into hospital at home again in the future. So what's your vision? I do believe it's going to take off. I do believe that curve is going to change and you're going to see an exponential increase in number of patients as well. I have hope, because of the leaders like you, that the system can make a change there. But what's the landscape look like then for you a few years in the future, for hospital at home?

Speaker 2: 29:37

You know, it is not unusual now where I hear from a different customer site that, oh wow, we just had been a patient who came in and requested the program. The future for me is that the public has an expectation of receiving this kind of care in their home and that it's not a choice anymore for health systems to have to offer this as an option and to have to build this up, and that payment will be universal. So that's the future I see very, very clearly, and that we have slayed some of the regulatory issues state by state, that we see and so we're getting Medicaid coverage for hospital at home and that we're really able to provide this full spectrum of acute care in the home. I see that clear as day. That's what we're going towards.

Speaker 1: 30:26

Excellent. How do you spend your days today? What is the day like in the life of Pippa Shulman right now?

Speaker 2: 30:34

You know, when Medically Home first started and I was first during them we were a very small team. I did everything right, as you pointed out. I cared for our first X number of patients. I designed the model. We tried everything out. If someone couldn't make a visit, I would go to the home. And as you grow and as we scale, I've had to build a team, and so part of what I do today is spending time with my team. They're incredible. They're incredible leaders themselves and I get to help, support and coach them to success and be able to orchestrate the growth of our programs and our company and new work that we're doing. So some of that's internal. Today I was on a call where we bring all of our implementation resources together and we talk about kind of what's new and what's happening, and two of my team members presented on the call and it was incredible to see the work they're doing on how we can innovate, bringing patients into the model, how the care of patients is innovating in the model. I also spend parts of each day talking to our customers. I have executive relationships with many of our customers, particularly on the clinical side, and so I get to spend a lot of time with clinical leaders at some incredible organizations and really how this fits into their goals and where they're seeing great success and where they may be struggling with adoption or budget issues, which are so prevalent right now in the health care system. So there's a part of each day that's that. And then I try to block off time each day and this is not going to be a surprise to you for thinking and synthesis of information and understanding the data that's around us and really thinking about what's next. Some days I don't get any of that time it's all meetings back to back, but some days I really get to carve out that time and collaborating with the team to think about where we're going and how we're going to be successful.

Speaker 1: 32:34

Very cool, pippa, I'm excited for you. I'm excited for what you're doing.

Speaker 2: 32:39

Thank, you John.

Speaker 1: 32:40

I'm honoring your time as I look at the clock as we go forward with this. Are there any questions? I don't ask this very often. Are there any questions that you wanted me to ask that I didn't ask?

Speaker 2: 32:52

I felt like you're going to ask me when we're talking about your family, but the families and caregivers. What I wanted you to ask is how can more people get access to hospital at home? My answer is tough, but we need people in every industry to start asking for this. Ask your doctor, talk to your payer. Is this a benefit for you? If you're an employer, make this a benefit for your employees. Finally, we encourage people to call members of Congress, either in their state legislature or in Congress, and talk about why home hospital is important and why we need to grow this across the country.

Speaker 1: 33:36

Thank you, Pippa. Thank you for asking that question.

Speaker 2: 33:37

Thank you, John.

Speaker 1: 33:38

For asking that question for me. One of the things in my notes that I did notice that my current home state of South Carolina is number four on the top five states that have the most hospitals that have been approved, which is cool. But I also noticed the map in the literature you sent me that the state of West Virginia has zero so which is, in and of itself, disappointing. Having said that, it's going to take an effort by the consumer. You're exactly right to demand that this service be offered through the payers, through their political leaders, that they're elected to make sure that they have them in mind as they go through this and it's not an easy one and with their providers of care, to say I want you to do this, I want you to figure out a way to do this. So I do appreciate that.

Speaker 2: 34:24

Yeah, john, you know my passion. You know part of this is not about a company. I'm excited about the success we've had, but this is about a movement of better health care, of care really truly centered around patients in a way that I never imagined when I was doing my training or first starting out in practice.

Speaker 1: 34:45

Well, I know I've talked to you pretty good on this podcast. I don't keep doing that as I go forward. I mean, pippa is a Dr, shulman is a superstar. I even look back in the LinkedIn. When she studied, she didn't study just one form of medicine. You study, you have a. What did you call it? Like three, you got.

Speaker 2: 35:00

I am triple boarded. Yeah, triple boarded.

Speaker 1: 35:03

Yeah, who's triple boarded?

Speaker 2: 35:05

Maybe a lot of people are, but yes, it just means, I think, 25,000 patients served.

Speaker 1: 35:11

You had too much money on school. I get that too, which is another thing, by the way, that needs to be reformed to make this work, and we can get into that conversation at some point in the future. But, yeah, absolutely. And again it goes back to all I knew, like this doctor has got some passion for this. She's not, she's not normal.

Speaker 2: 35:28

So I appreciate.

Speaker 1: 35:30

I appreciate that not normal in that conversation. That's a good, not normal.

Speaker 2: 35:34

A high compliment, John.

Speaker 1: 35:35

So just a couple more questions. I promise I'll let you go. So no, no, of course. When's your book coming out?

Speaker 2: 35:43

You know it's funny. I know I have a book in me. Writing is really hard, so if there's someone out there who wants to Write with me, let's do it, because I've got a lot of stories to tell.

Speaker 1: 35:54

You heard that, folks. I got another couple of ways, so, offline, let me ask me about a couple of those. By the way, I haven't written mine yet either, so I'm waiting. What's the title of the book going to be?

Speaker 2: 36:03

Oh wow, that's a good one, I don't. That's a great question. I think I need a minute to think about that, John. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1: 36:10

That's OK. I'm going to ask you the tougher Maybe it's the same one as your next question but when you do decide to write in and I said, I got a couple of different folks who not ghostwriting you don't need a ghostwriter, but folks who can take podcasts like this and transcribe your interviews and say there's your book right there. It's just a matter of putting it into the concepts and bringing those forward, but Bringing it back home and into it. But I mean the influence that you want to have in both health care but more importantly, as you said, and the lives of others, especially when you connect it to your family, and how important it is to you to do that. I'm going to give you a billboard. You can put it anywhere you want to and I'm going to let you write anything you want to on that billboard. What's going to be on the billboard and why would you put that on the billboard?

Speaker 2: 36:57

My billboard would say Lift up the voices of those who can't speak loud enough for themselves. I would probably write it a little differently. I was taught by my parents that we look out for the little guy and that we speak up for people when they can't speak up. As a physician, that's a lot of what I do. When people are suffering, they often cannot advocate for themselves. The facility based medical system Marginalizes people. That's part of what I do. So that's my billboard, and I think we the news does not cover the amount of caring that is out there and we need to get back in touch with that. So that's something that I feel really, really strongly about.

Speaker 1: 37:47

People, this has been a pleasure having you on. I've had fun getting caught back up with you Me too.

Speaker 2: 37:51

How can folks stay in touch with you.

Speaker 1: 37:54

They're going to want to find you and talk to you.

Speaker 2: 37:57

Well, pipa Shulman on LinkedIn. I have to say, the platform for Milano's Twitter not as fun to be on anymore, so I'm not there very much. But you can also find me on the Medi-C home website and reach out, email me and we can have a conversation. It'll be great.

Speaker 1: 38:12

I'll put links to both those things in the show notes so that folks can stay in touch. Once again, dr Pipa Shulman, thank you so much for your time and investing it with the listeners of the Uncommon Leader podcast. John, thank you.

Speaker 2: 38:23

It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 1: 38:26

And that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate it If you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of Uncommon Leaders. Until next time, go with Grow Champions.