Welcome back to On/Offcall!

What a week! A huge thank you to everyone who attended our first AI Secrets for Clinicians webinar starring Offcall co-founder Dr. Graham Walker and Validara Health founder Dr. Sarah Gebauer. The energy was off the charts:

✅ 150+ engaged attendees
💬 200+ thoughtful questions and comments about how AI is impacting medicine
🤯 2 brilliant speakers breaking down the future of medicine + tech

If you weren’t able to attend, we also released a special AI Resource Guide expertly curated by Graham and Sarah featuring a roundup of tools, communities, educational resources, and prompting tips. It’s available for all clinicians to access!

Physicians: Find the guide published on Offcall here (you’ll need your NPI to access).

Everyone else: (i.e. Those who don’t have an NPI) you can access the guide here.

Know someone who would benefit from joining us? Help us grow our tent by forwarding this newsletter to your physician colleagues and subscribing here.

Nurses Know How to Fix Healthcare, So Why Do They Get Left Out of the Room?

This week on How I Doctor, we featured our very first nurse guest and she sounded the alarm about a looming crisis that’s impacting nursing but still flying under the radar.

That would be Shawna Butler, a nurse economist, managing director for NextMed Health, and also the host of the SEE YOU NOW podcast from J&J. Shawna shared a dire statistic about how we’re hemorrhaging nursing expertise which surprised even Graham: “By 2030, we’re projected to lose 2 million years of nursing expertise to retirement.”

But that wasn’t all. Throughout the conversation, Shawna and Graham also discussed:

📉 The real reasons that nurses are burning out of practicing medicine
🩺 Ways that technology and innovation can help keep nurses at the bedside
🚨 The untapped power of team-based care and how to break down silos between doctors and nurses.

Unfortunately, 2030 isn’t some far-off future; it’s less than five years away. Which is why this episode is a much-needed starting point for an urgent conversation about how we as a healthcare system can start better supporting the entire clinician workforce.

Listen to the full episode →

Have You Nominated a Physician for Our How I Doctor Award Yet?

We’re awarding the inaugural How I Doctor Physician of the Year Award to a physician who’s charting a new career path and using their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit to inspire others. We’ll soon be announcing the winner in this newsletter and on the How I Doctor podcast, and we’ll also award this physician $1,000 to recognize their contributions.

So tell us: Who’s a physician role model you’d like to see recognized? You still have a few more days – until June 13th – to make your nomination. Learn more about the award and nominate an all-star physician here!

3 Things to Read This Week

A New Way to Talk About Pay, Workload, and What We're Worth (Emergency Medicine News)
Graham shares the founding story of Offcall and why Offcall’s drive for autonomy and transparency is exactly what's needed to save physicians' careers!

Medical school ranking and neighborhood characteristics of initial practice location (JAMA)
Physicians from top-ranked medical institutions had a 52% lower odds of practicing in socioeconomically deprived areas.

Private practice ‘unraveling’ due to low payment & administrative burdens (Medical Economics)
No surprise here: Private practices now account for less than half of physicians, with only 42.2% in 2024, down from 60.1% in 2012.

Physician Builder Spotlight: David Canes

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 David Canes, Associate Professor of Urology, Medical Director at Parkland Medical Center, and the founder of WellPrept (more on the company’s mission below!). You can connect further with David on X and LinkedIn.

1. David, what inspired you to become a physician entrepreneur? Honestly, it wasn’t a master plan. I didn’t go into medicine thinking I’d start a software company. But over time, I kept bumping into the same inefficiencies — particularly around how we educate patients. Where is it written that we have to explain what the kidney is, from scratch, every time? I found myself building workarounds, not because I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but because I wanted to stop saying the same things 25 times a day. I wanted to have patients actually walk into clinic prepared. Eventually I realized: if I’m cobbling together solutions, probably other doctors are too. That’s what pulled me in.

2. Tell us what your company does and what problem you're trying to solve. WellPrept helps doctors spend their best energy on the most fulfilling part of being a doctor: the personal 1:1 doctor patient interaction. When patients come in up to speed, you and the patient have the conversation you actually want to have, instead of repeating your spiels all day long. How? WellPrept is a system to deliver curated, specialty-specific patient education before the visit, or on the way out. Think explainer videos, handouts, care team intros, even podcasts — all sent automatically by email and text. It’s beautifully organized, branded to the practice, and actually gets consumed. The problem we’re solving is simple: Doctors are teaching all day long, but with no control over what the patient knows, where they get their information, or when they learn it. That slows us down, leads to confusion, and honestly — it’s exhausting. Burnout central. WellPrept turns the pre-visit into a prep period, like flipping the classroom for medicine.

3. What's your advice to anyone who's thinking about entrepreneurship or pursuing a nontraditional career in medicine? Don’t wait for permission. Nobody’s going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, you’re allowed to build that.” Just start. Try solving a real problem you care about. And don’t worry if the solution seems too “small” — the little, annoying problems are often the best ones to fix. They’re the ones we all live with and tolerate. Until someone has had enough and fixes it. Also, make sure people are willing to pay before you build it. An entire department of Urologists was ready to pay when WellPrept was just a prototype, before I hired software developers to make the real product.

4. What's one lesson you've learned since building your company that wasn't obvious to you before? Building a great product isn’t enough — you have to learn how to put it in front of doctors who resonate with the problem. And that means listening way more than talking. It also means learning how decisions actually get made in medical groups, which rarely follows a straight line. I’ve had to get comfortable with slow timelines, ghosting, and committee chaos. But I’ve also learned that if you can show real value — and keep showing up — people notice.

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!

Most Talked About On Offcall

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.

🚨 Must read, Jahangir Asghar
Dr. Jahangir Asghar shared his powerful reflections on why physicians — despite their years of training, clinical risk, and massive workloads — retain one of the smallest shares of the economic value they generate. Read it here.

🎙️ New podcast, Santoshi Billakota!
Dr. Santoshi BIllakota and Dr. Shahla Moghbel released a new podcast called Be Empowered about women in medicine and issues in the current healthcare system. Give it a listen and follow here.

👏 Say it louder, Resa Lewiss
Dr. Resa Lewiss published an essay in Fast Company about the 3 steps every new graduate should take (including setting up a personal board of directors!). Read it here.

📝 Lead the way, Daniel Yang
Dr. Daniel Yang shared Kaiser Permanente’s new public policy page focused on AI, including actionable policy recommendations for lawmakers. Read it here.

📅 Don’t miss it, Jenny Yu
Dr. Jenny Yu is speaking on June 10th for a live X=Primary Care Talks about the tension between rapid technological process and the deeply rooted traditions of medical culture. RSVP here.

🎙️ Hot podcast alert, Ethan Abbott
Dr. Ethan Abbott and Dr. Donald Apakama interviewed Dr. Dong-han Yao and Dr. Shivam Vedak about large language models, prompting, and the future of emergency medicine. Listen here!

✅ Strong work, Mustafa Alnaib!
Dr. Mustafa Alnaib presented “Practical Applications of AI for Doctors Beyond Chat” at the Iraqi Medical Sciences Association in Arizona. Learn more here.

👏 Well stated, Mark Cox
UK-based A&E Dr. Mark Cox reflected on the harsh reality of what it’s like to practice medicine today and why he’s building the mental health company Orli. Read it here.

📅 Don’t miss this keynote, Ethan Goh
Dr. Ethan Goh is delivering a keynote at HIMSS AI this summer covering whether AI is really outperforming doctors and the future for healthcare providers with AI. More here.

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