On/Offcall: The Difference Between Young vs. Older Doctors

Welcome back to On/Offcall!

Offcall is catching 🔥. This week, our co-founder Dr. Graham Walker sat down with Congressman Greg Murphy for the How I Doctor podcast for an open and honest conversation about how we can better advocate for physicians and achieve more wins in Washington.

You may remember Congressman Murphy because he recently ignited a firestorm by tweeting that young doctors don’t work hard enough. To his credit, he agreed to sit down with Graham, and while there were no shortage of 🌶️ moments, both leaders also did share some areas of common ground.

Murphy is one of the few doctors in Congress and clearly cares deeply about the future of medicine. But, Graham pushed him on his controversial statements about young physicians and also pressed him to explain why physicians seem to continue getting the short end of the stick.

They discussed:

👉 Why the medical profession as we know it is under serious threat of extinction (!)
👉 Young vs. older doctors and who’s willing to make harder sacrifices 👀
👉 Whether “work-life balance” has gone too far and is part of what's ruining medicine 👀👀
👉 Why even drug cartels are more ethical than health insurance companies 👀👀👀
👉 Why long-standing specialty societies and advocacy orgs like the AMA have failed doctors 👀👀👀👀

You can listen to the full episode at the link below, and we’d love to hear your reactions! What did you think of the episode? Feel free to reply directly to this email or add your comments on social media.

Listen to the episode

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Most Talked About On Offcall

Will AI Resent Doctors Over Scut Work?
Fun one from our social media: Graham and Dr. Sarah Gebauer respond to several light-hearted questions from Dr. Brad Goldberg and Dr. Adam Carewe during our recent AI webinar. Watch their reply and be sure to also download our AI resource guide here!

Help Medical Student Serena Choose Her Specialty

A Harvard MD/MBA asks: What specialty and career should she choose based on her interests in AI, innovation and public health? She’s asking for physicians to share your advice and connect further for networking if you’re open to it. Reply directly if you’re willing to be connected privately.

How to Fix Medical Education for Young Doctors

ICYMI: Graham’s interview with Dr. Paul Tran about why medical education needs a shake-up and how to actually pull it off.

Physician Builder Spotlight: Kinan Muhammad

We’re shining light on MD-entrepreneurs! Each week, we feature an entrepreneurial doctor who’s building a cool product, company, or working on a big idea that you definitely want to know about. This week, meet Kinan Muhammad, founder of Neu Health (more on the company’s mission below!). You can connect further with Kinan on LinkedIn.

1. Kinan, what inspired you to become a physician entrepreneur? I have always had an entrepreneurial approach to the work I do. The frustration of seeing strong academic clinical research not translating into actual clinical care only strengthened that way of thinking. As a neurologist, I watched patients with neurodegenerative conditions decline overtime, with very little innovation in the space. I wanted to bridge that gap and turn academic and clinical evidence into action.

2. Tell us what your company does and what problem you're trying to solve. Neu Health is a digital health platform designed to transform how we monitor and manage conditions like Parkinson’s and dementia. Right now, care is reactive – based on brief clinic visits and incomplete subjective snapshots of a patient’s symptoms. We’re changing that by developing software that utilizes the sensors on patients’ own smartphones to objectively track signs and symptoms in the real world. We developed machine learning models developed from over a decade of research from Oxford University to help optimize the management of patients. We’ve now demonstrated improvements in outcomes for patients and efficiency savings for healthcare providers.

3. What's your advice to anyone who's thinking about entrepreneurship or a nontraditional career in medicine? Don’t wait for permission or worry about failure. Medicine trains us to follow structure, but entrepreneurship thrives on curiosity and courage. If you see a problem that keeps bothering you, chances are you’re meant to solve it. You also don’t have to give up your clinical identity to innovate. In fact, being a doctor gives you unique insight into what really matters. My advice is to start small, stay close to the problem, and surround yourself with people who challenge and support you. The most meaningful change often happens outside the traditional path.

4. How can a physician get over the "start" problem and overcome their biggest fear to start a company/organization? The hardest part is often giving yourself permission to try. Physicians are programmed to follow clear pathways – but building something new is messy by nature. You overcome that fear by just starting. You don’t need a perfect plan, you need consistency and perseverance. I’d also suggest finding a like-minded co-founder who complements your skillset, as that will help in the long run. Your biggest fear should be the regret of not trying and or taking the leap in the first place.

5. What's the #1 lesson you've learned since building your company that wasn't obvious to you before? Firstly, it’s to trust your gut! Medicine is often evidence-based, but in the startup world you may not always have the evidence to make fully informed decisions. I learned quickly that intuition can often fill that gap. Secondly, building a great product isn’t enough, you have to build the right team and culture around it. In a startup, collaboration is everything. You need people who challenge your thinking, bring different strengths, and believe in the mission just as much as you do. It’s not just about what you build, it’s about who you build it with and the problems it solves.

6. How can other physicians support you? Let others know how to get in touch. I’d love to connect with other neurologists and healthcare providers in the U.S. who work with Parkinson’s and dementia patients. We’re currently expanding access to Neu Health in the U.S. following our recent FDA approval and are looking for clinical teams interested in trying out our technology and exploring research or clinical partnerships. So if people are interested, it would be great to hear from you. You can get in touch via LinkedIn or our website here: https://neu.health.

This excerpt has been shortened, be sure to read the full article here. Know someone else who should be featured? Reply or tag them and their company in the comments!

4 Things to Read This Week

How to Fix the Paradox of Primary Care (The Health Care Blog)
Matthew Holt’s bold proposal: Give everyone really high-end primary care, pay primary care docs really well, and save a boatload of money.

True Stories of Doctors Reclaiming Humanity in a System That Challenges It (Kevin MD)
From Dr. Alae Kawam, Kim Downey, and Dr. Nicole Solomos: Inside the quiet rebellion of physicians no longer willing to sacrifice their humanity for productivity quotas.

A Eulogy for the Primary Care Physician (Journal of Graduate Medical Education)
From Dr. David Blumenthal and Forrest Boehler: “We are gathered here today to bid farewell to the PCP.” Plus commentary from Dr. Rebecca Andrews.

Potential Diagnostic Error for Emergency Conditions, Mortality, and Healthy Days at Home (JAMA)
From Dr. Michelle Lin, Dr. Amber Sabbatini, Ryan Burke, and Laura Burke: How often are emergency conditions missed in the ED—and what are the consequences?

Highlights From Our Community

Each week, we celebrate career milestones, launches, & other goings-on in the physician community. Have something to promote? Reply and we’ll feature you.

⚕️Strong work, Jen Brull.
Dr. Jen Brull reflected on learnings from this week’s Family Medicine Advocacy Summit featuring 300 family physicians advocating for change in Washington, D.C. Read her great perspectives here.

🎊 Congratulations, Columbia Emergency Medicine Residents!
Congratulations to the class of 2025 on their residency graduation, featuring Dr. Neil Bhavsar, Dr. Sean Aubuchon, Dr. Shriman Balasubramanian, Dr. Michael Campbell, Dr. Christian Davidson, Dr. Guadalupe Jimenez, Dr. Lauren Kaplan, Dr. Barbara Magid, Dr. Maria Mosley-Colon, Dr. Reena Sheth, Dr. Destinee Soubannarath Gwee, and Dr. Tyler Wise. Learn more here.

👌 Thanks for your leadership, Travis Bias
Dr. Travis Bias appeared on a Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) panel with Fawad Butt, Merage Ghane, and Dr. Christine Palermo to discuss how to integrate AI seamlessly in healthcare. Read more here.

🎙️ Worth the listen, Adrienne Youdim
Dr. Adrienne Youdim sat down with friendship expert Shasta Nelson in the latest episode of the HealthBite podcast to discuss the epidemic of loneliness. Listen here.

🗣️ Listen up, Robert Pearl
Dr. Robert Pearl spoke about the need to lean on AI and technology as a clinical partner for primary care at the Primary Care Collaborative 2025 Conference. Read more here, plus commentary from Ann Greiner here.

✅ Great interview Davis Liu
Dr. Davis Liu was interviewed in Dr. Ainsley MacLean’s latest newsletter about bringing AI to primary care and his company Curai Health. Read it here.

🙏 Thanks for the highlights, John Dayton
Dr. John Dayton posted about what he learned at HLTH Europe and some of the most interesting panels he attended, including the implementation of AI scribes, AI for data matching, and much more. See it here.

👍 Keep up the awesome work, Lookman Lawal
Cardiologist Dr. Lookman Lawal about his decision to start his own practice straight out of residency and what’s kept him inspired in the process. Read it here.

✅ Thanks for sharing, Howard Green
Dr. Howard Green shared an eye-opening graphic showing the shifting employment status by ownership type for physicians from 2012 to present. See it here.

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