Dr Josh Case

What was your first job?

My first non-medical job was a software development / healthtech internship at Healthy.io in Tel Aviv. Among the many things I learned there was how far you can get by dreaming big and by envisioning a world that’s different today.

What are your current roles? What made you decide to pursue these?

I’m currently working as a full time software developer / CTO at my startup Go Locum. I knew very early in my clinical path that I would have an atypical career. By the end of my medical internship, I decided to go part-time (0.5 FTE) to have more time to “play” in the software and innovation space. I experimented with many projects, many of which didn’t go anywhere, but then ultimately I stumbled upon this problem of hospitals having difficulty communicating information about their roster vacancies in an organised way. One fortuitous Facebook message from my now-cofounder Phoebe Bardsley, and here we are.

How would you describe what you do now?

While my title is CTO and I’m ultimately responsible for the development, maintenance and operation of our suite of software products, being in a company with 4 people means you still need to wear a lot of hats. In addition to my technical duties I’m often assisting with operations, sales/relationships, marketing – whatever the company needs in that moment. That has upsides and downsides – every day is a new challenge, but then sometimes it can be chaotic! All things considered though, I know I really thrive when I’m developing new technology on the edge of the unknown, and I’m definitely doing that, so I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

How would someone interested in your field get started or find more information?

If a doctor is interested in learning software, they can read my book “Code Blue: An introduction to computer programming for doctors and medical students” (email me and I’ll send it to you for free). But broadly speaking, you don’t need to learn software development to get into tech. If you’re interested, I’d recommend attending as many startup-y, tech-y events as you can, and creating a linkedin and sending cold messages to people you find interesting. I’m also happy to be a point of contact. Strange things will then start happening – as you form relationships, unseen opportunities eventually start to come out of left field.

What was one really good piece of advice someone has told you?

Saying “no” is the ultimate productivity hack (of course, there are times to cast the net far and wide but that’s not the case most of the time)

Was there a turning point in your career where you decided to pursue your chosen field over traditional medicine? What was it?

There was a turning point. It was 6:10am on the surgical ward during my medical internship. A surgical consultant said “Josh, you guys have it easy as interns nowadays. When I was an intern 16 years ago, we had to manually edit a Word document every morning with each patient’s bed number and their test results.” Little did he know that’s exactly what I had been doing every morning for him for the last 14 weeks. Both the lack of progress in 16 years, and the lack of touch from leadership about how bad the situation was, prompted me to build a career around creating change.

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of work?

I love chess, basketball, writing, reading and playing the piano

How do you manage work/life balance? 

Saying “no” to unimportant things, and ruthless prioritisation