From Ward Round to Start Up: Tips for Medics with a Business Idea

So you’re writing your 16^th discharge summary for the day after completing the marathon morning ward round. Suddenly an idea pops into your head – an app that will make you more efficient in your clinical role and improve patient care! Or, perhaps, after nights of studying for your impending dreaded written exam, you develop a method that could help student recall and understanding?

Working in healthcare and medical education can often be busy and overwhelming, but there are times when some of us stop and think, ‘Wait, this could be done better’ or with less resource, or in a more streamlined way. And from this thought, a small proportion of people will then go on to develop a solution for the problem. It is the foundation of our
mandatory clinical audits, but it can also be the start of innovation: introducing new ideas to solve an existing problem, to the benefit of a group of people.

Moving on from the ‘great idea’ is the sticking point for a lot of people, especially medics. As chronic overachievers, we can get bogged down in the analysis – is this good enough? Will anyone use it? Will it end up on the medical education curriculum?

 Usually it’s the following steps (‘What happens next’) that can often leave medics stumped.

So we’ll be holding a series of workshops to help you develop your idea, from how to plan your project, develop a business case, applying for grants and registering a business.

For now, here are four tips to consider after you get your big idea.

      
1. Don’t be afraid to think small

Sometimes when we have an idea we can get bogged down in the details before we’ve even started. “How will I fund this? Will this be incorporated into regular clinical practice? How can I get all the UK surgical trainees using my app?” Having big goals are great, but they can be overwhelming and can stop you from taking the initial small, but difficult,
beginning steps. At the beginning, don’t be afraid to think small. If your solution can help just one student, one patient or one clinician, consider that a success. Then work from there.

       
 2. Always remember your ‘why’

Write down why you came up with your idea, what problem you are trying to solve, and who you think will benefit. If you can condense this into a few sentences, it will help you not only communicate your idea to potential stakeholders but will also act as a framework for the development of your idea.

       
3. Timing is important

Having an idea is great, but sometimes the timing matters more. How will timing affect the development of your idea? Is it something you need to start now, or should you wait for a few months or years? If you wait, will you be missing out on an opportunity or might there be better resources available later? If you’re a trainee, is this idea something you can do alongside training and general life, or will you have to adjust your training commitments?

There are lots of things to think about when it comes to timing. As medics, we’re used to multitasking but it is important to practice mindfulness and balance when deciding how to move forward with an idea.

       
4. Failing is learning

As clinicians, one of the biggest lessons we learn is that we won’t always get the diagnosis right, and sometimes treatments won’t work. It’s the same in the world of innovation and entrepreneurship. Being in East Anglia, we’re lucky to be near the sea, so stick with me for this analogy! 

Some ideas are like huge rocks embedded on the beach – they never get off the ground because the solution they provide is too clunky and not streamlined. Other ideas are like pebbles that you get excited about, run ahead with development, but when you throw it in the sea of implementation, it only goes a little way before it sinks.

And some ideas are like boats, varying in size from the toy boats in a kids’ beach set, to cruiseliners hosting hundreds of people everyday. From idea development through to implementation, they seem to work, but this doesn’t mean it’s always smooth sailing.

Along your path of innovation, see failure as a learning opportunity and try to embrace the unknown. You may have collected a pocket full of idea ‘pebbles’ but you may just have a boat waiting to set sail.

Dr Samantha Ike, Digital Health & Entrepreneurship Fellow

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