I Left My CMIO Role to Join a Startup - And Ended up Finding My Tribe

I still remember the moment I walked out of the Kaiser building for the last time like it was yesterday. Badge turned in. Tech erased and reset. Inbox cleared. Farewell hugs still lingering. I sat in my car, hands resting on the steering wheel, not quite ready to drive away. After 13 years, the silence felt heavier than I expected.

I know what you’re probably thinking, but I did not leave disillusioned or burned out. I felt deeply proud of the teams we built, programs we launched, and ways we helped shape a system that touches the lives of millions.

But what drove me to walk away was something deeper that had begun to stir in me for years: A quiet inner voice which kept asking: What if your role was no longer to improve the system but to reimagine it entirely? What if your next chapter was not defined by security but by creativity and invention?

Eventually, I realized I was no longer content optimizing what already existed. I wanted to build something new and fix problems at the root. And I wanted to do it with others who felt that same creative urgency. So I left – not because I had all the answers, but because I was ready to start asking different questions.

The Journey at Kaiser Permanente

You need to know a little bit about my background and path as a physician to understand why this decision was so monumental for me. My path to becoming a physician was always grounded in relationships. I chose family medicine because I believed in continuity, community, and the chance to care for the whole person. A "Jack of all Trades" and "Master of None." That same mindset eventually drew me into informatics, where I realized technology could either distance us from our patients or bring us closer, depending on how thoughtfully it was designed and used.

At Kaiser Permanente, I found a place where I could do both. I spent over a decade learning, growing, and helping lead transformation at the intersection of care and technology. I remained committed to clinical practice throughout my time in informatics, working across every modality available. Whether through longitudinal continuity visits, real-time video, phone, or chat, or asynchronous In Basket communication, I stayed grounded in the daily experiences of patients and frontline care. I was the kind of doctor who always asked, "Why are we doing it this way?" and "How can we make this better for patients and clinicians?” I volunteered for pilot programs, offered support to colleagues, and shared tips for improving clinic efficiency in Epic long before it was mainstream. I also pushed myself to be as efficient as possible. I knew that if I mastered the technology, I could finish my work faster, focus more deeply on my patients, and consistently make it home in time for dinner.

As I moved into informatics and leadership, I helped build programs that improved documentation workflows, increased the usability of digital tools, developed new modalities and departments of care, and brought clinical voices into system design. I helped establish and grow a department focused on medical informatics from the ground up, ensuring our clinicians had a seat at the table when decisions were made. The impact of that work will last long after my departure.

The Inner Drive to Create

With that context, hopefully now you can better understand why leaving was not easy. Like so many other physicians, I had followed a path that felt stable, responsible, and valuable, and walking away meant letting go of a part of my identity, influence, and familiarity. Still, I knew I had more to give.

I had seen too many cracks in the foundation of the system. Technology that created more noise than clarity. Clinician tools that added clicks but not value. Patient journeys that felt more like a maze than a path. These were not new issues, but they had reached a point where I could no longer ignore the desire to approach them from a different angle.

Increasingly, I also felt that the next chapter of healthcare, especially in this new era of data, AI, and user-centered innovation, was going to be shaped not just by institutions, but by builders. And I wanted to be one of them.

And yet, I hesitated. As physicians, we are trained to minimize risk. We are taught to value certainty and structure. Even in informatics, where innovation is encouraged, it is usually within the guardrails of a large organization. Going out on your own, or even joining something in its early, unproven stages, feels foreign to how most of us are wired.

In part of these reasons, I knew that I was not quite ready to launch something on my own. I had ideas, yes, but I also had blind spots. Founder-mode would need to wait. I needed to learn, to unlearn, to build new muscles. What I needed most was to find a community of people who were asking the same questions and building new answers.

I needed to find my tribe.

Finding the Right Early-Stage Community…and Company

In August 2023, I found my way into a new Slack community called Clinicians Who VC, which later evolved into Scrub Capital. I was not a venture capitalist, but I was curious about how companies get built, how founders pitch, and how clinicians could play a bigger role in shaping the future of healthcare beyond the bedside and traditional clinic. I was welcomed into a diverse group of clinicians who are all doing untraditional and fascinating work at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and venture capital.

What followed was a new kind of education. I listened to founder pitches. I heard the kinds of questions experienced members asked – sharp, insightful, and always from an investor’s mindset. This was not the kind of learning that comes with a degree. No MBA. No MPH. Just immersion in a community that was thinking and acting differently.

The group has an internal job board, and one day I came across a post that caught my eye: "Portfolio co building a novel triage service, looking for world class MDs. Flexible on full-time or part-time."

A novel triage service? That sounded familiar. I helped launch Kaiser Colorado’s “Chat with a Doc” back in 2014, which eventually evolved into the enterprise-wide “Chat with KP” program. The phrase “world class MDs” gave me pause too. Was I that? Maybe. I had always taken pride in the way my patients responded to my care. But what really stood out was the person who shared the post: TJ Parker, co-founder of PillPack, a company acquired by Amazon in 2018. It suddenly felt like a real opportunity, exciting but grounded, ambitious yet credible.

So I took the shot. Was I still scared? Absolutely. I worried about the unknowns. About finances. About the risk of joining a startup. About diving back into clinical care full-time. But in August 2024, I made the leap.

It was lean, fast, and deeply operational. What started small quickly expanded, soon we were serving patients in all 50 states. Volumes grew, and so did the ambition. Every day brought new release notes, new automations, and constant iteration. Manual workflows were reduced to just a few clicks. Patient satisfaction soared. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had found my people.

In this environment, I did not lead, I contributed. I offered ideas, shared real-world clinical context, challenged assumptions, and brought my Kaiser experience to bear. I learned what it meant to make decisions when every dollar matters. I saw what it takes to build something from scratch, without a safety net. And I started picking up a new language, the language of product, of venture, of design thinking, that no leadership seminar or committee could ever have taught me.

More than anything, I built relationships. With people who might one day help bring one of my ideas to life. With fellow clinicians who had taken similar leaps. With engineers and designers who cared deeply about both outcomes and experience. These were the builders I had been searching for.

And now, as of May 22, 2025, that stealth startup is no longer in stealth. It has officially launched to the world as General Medicine (generalmedicine.co). What we have been building quietly is now public, and I could not be more proud to be part of this founding journey.

Looking Forward: Impact at Scale, Powered by Creation

This chapter has challenged me more than I expected, and now, with the public launch of General Medicine, it feels like just the beginning of what is possible. I do not have a perfect blueprint for what comes next. But I know this: meaningful change in healthcare will not come from traditional healthcare. It will come from a newcomer, and from networks of committed, courageous people who are willing to question what has always been done and build what should exist instead.

If I had made this leap earlier in my career, I would have lacked the perspective, the pattern recognition, and the deep empathy that only comes from years of direct care and system leadership. But if I had waited longer, I may have missed the window to stretch and grow in new ways. The timing was not perfect, but it was right.

To every physician or clinician who feels that tension I once did, know that you are not alone. Whether you choose to stay and lead change from within or step outside and create something new, your skills are needed. Your perspective is powerful. And your desire to make things better is exactly where transformation begins. Healthcare needs physicians to lead again.

I did not leave medicine. I just started practicing it differently.

And in doing so, I found my tribe.

General Medicine is hiring physicians, NP, and PAs! Apply and learn more here.