Faces of U of T Medicine: Natan Simchovich

Were you always interested in entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship was by no means something I wanted to pursue early on - I don't have one of those "when I was 5 I ran my first successful lemonade stand and never looked back" stories. My journey into entrepreneurship picked up steam about halfway into my undergrad when I began craving an outlet to channel all my creative energy towards. After dabbling with a variety of initiatives - ranging from consulting services to non-profit organizations, I became involved in a more formal startup role creating a texting bot to automate management for sports teams. The out-of-box thinking, rapidly changing environment and prospect of creating impact on a larger global scale would give me a rush of adrenaline that had me working all night long even before I discovered what the hype surrounding this “coffee” thing was all about. These early positive experiences served as a launching pad into what I’m confident will be a long, rewarding roller coaster of a journey into entrepreneurship.

Are you planning on returning to your medical school studies?

I'm planning to return to complete my medical studies this upcoming year and know that I definitely want to complete my medical degree. This year away was important for me to explore different opportunities and take a deeper dive into healthcare innovation. The long-term goal is to weave together my medical career and entrepreneurial activities. So far, it has paid off as I've been able to meet and learn from many extraordinary physician-entrepreneur role models, I’m helping create a Pan-Canadian organization called CAPIE that's helping fostering healthcare innovation by physicians, and I’m working in several unique roles such as imaware™.

Can you tell me a bit about imaware™?

imaware™ is a digital health organization based in Houston, TX. It provides access to advanced testing and telemedicine physician services, which allows people to screen and monitor their health remotely. So far, there are tests available for celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, some novel cardiovascular tests and others. Every test we offer is scientifically based and supported by peer-reviewed literature. We have onboarded >12 respected doctors in their fields to support the design and validation of all these tests.

imaware™ is uniquely positioned to serve in response to the COVID-19 pandemic by offering access to CDC’s EUA-authorized COVID-19 testing by partnering with a network of local and national healthcare organizations and CLIA-certified laboratories.

We've quickly built up a process to leverage our existing platform to facilitate at-home testing. We offer a free online assessment that allows patients to estimate their risk for having COVID-19. For patients estimated to be at high-risk, we offer an end-to-end at-home testing solution that includes a healthcare professional coming to your home to administer the test. We provide this test at cost and have worked hard to minimize the financial burden on the patient. The total cost is currently $135 - the vast majority of which encompasses the lab testing fees and healthcare professional costs. The patient then receives their results within 48-72 hours of taking the test and our telehealth partners are available to discuss the results, recommend next steps and monitor the patient. imaware™ has decided to forgo any profits from this test to make it accessible to the largest number of individuals.

We've launched a beta in Texas and have already facilitated many tests in the past week. Given our success, we are finalizing a partnership with the city of Houston to bring this test for free to many high-risk patients. We have all the infrastructure set up to scale beyond Texas and are hoping to help across the US/Canada to help as much as we can and reduce the burden on our healthcare system.

Given that our medical system is different than the US, do you anticipate any challenges rolling this out in Canada?

We have already begun preliminary discussions with Canada in hopes of rolling out some of our services here. Much of our founding team is from Canada and we think there's a huge opportunity to empower patients across the nation, especially those that are in more remote areas. Of course, we'll have to adapt to the different health care system and corresponding regulations which may be the limiting factor in all of this. We're hopeful that we can make a solid case given the success we've had in the US over the past few years and the need for remote digital testing, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s your role with imaware™? How did you get involved?

This is one of those “right place, right time” stories where everything just seemed to fall in place. When I was approved for a year off, I began exploring opportunities where I could make an impact with digital health innovation. I reconnected with one of my close friends from elementary school who was now leading a forward-thinking technology consultancy in Blackcreek. One of their clients (imaware™) was rapidly growing and had one opening available for a product manager that they were looking to fill immediately.

Enter me. Someone with no official product management experience - a resume that simply couldn’t be turned down. They decided to take a flyer on me given my friend’s recommendation and words can’t express how appreciative I am. While my official title is “Product Manager,” the nature of working with a smaller team at a growing organization requires everyone to wear multiple hats. On any given week, I’m involved in design, business development, marketing, customer support, management, rapid prototyping and product strategy. Personally, I just love building stuff and hustling so this “jack of all trades, master of none” role is a match made in heaven for me.

What have you learned from this experience so far?

I came into this experience with a white-belt mentality, intending to soak up as much learning as possible. Three months haven’t yet passed since I began this role but the amount I’ve learned has been disproportionate. I’ll share some of the highlights below:

1. Startups need to adapt to a rapidly changing world and efficiently develop products. In my case, it can genuinely feel as though I’m working at an entirely new company on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. This pace can be overwhelming, particularly when you’re growing quickly and that’s something I’m gradually becoming comfortable with. Embrace this fluidity and stay focused on the most immediate next task to not get overwhelmed.
2. Your team is everything and in the early days, I think it’s so much more important to surround yourself with the ‘right’ people than it is to work on the ‘right’ project.
3. More than anything, I’ve radically evolved my decision-making framework. I believe that, beyond a certain inflection point, optionality is inversely proportional to productivity. In other words, having more options complicates decision making and burns up resources from our daily mental capacity. Given the immense amount of opportunities and choices we’ll face throughout our lifetimes, it’s critical to develop an approach to quickly evaluate the tradeoffs of different options available and make a decision that’s in-line with your company/personal vision and core values.

Any advice for other medical students interested in entrepreneurship?

Leverage our incredible “pay it forward” culture. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how open our community of physicians is to mentoring medical students. Despite full time clinical practices, running growing companies and other obligations, there has yet to be a single physician who has turned me down for a coffee or phone chat. Leverage this while you can, it’s incredibly powerful. Then one day pay it forward yourself.

If your ship doesn't come to shore, swim out to meet it. Whatever your entrepreneurial goal is, don't expect it to arrive at your doorstep. It’s up to you to make it happen. In my case, the opportunities I wanted to pursue required me to take a full year off of studies. This may be on the more extreme side of the spectrum but determine your goals and then refuse to take no for an answer. The only limitation for opportunities is your imagination.

Take advantage of pre-clerkship. While it may not feel this way in the moment, we have a ton of free time in pre-clerkship (more than we ever will again). Don’t aim for quantity or CV fillers. Take the time to decide what your personal goals are and pursue a few quality initiatives that you can fully immerse yourself into.

Finally, be yourself. I haven’t found anyone that’s followed the same path as I have which complicated the process. But that’s okay. Don’t give in to the pressure of doing what others are doing just for the sake of it. Be true to yourself and carve your own unique path. Future you will thank you for it.

We’re living in a time of unprecedented opportunity for healthcare innovation with solutions being developed to address the classic roadblocks of security, privacy and data. Let’s make the most of this hand we’ve been dealt and shape what the future of healthcare will look like.