What happens when a medical student sells a surgical robotics startup before finishing FY1 — and then spends the next decade inventing devices he deliberately never runs?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Alastair Darwood, a medical doctor with a bioengineering PhD who has built a career as an inventor and entrepreneur across medical devices, consumer hardware, and cycling technology. From orthopaedic robotics to analgesic masks to e-bikes, Alastair's playbook is always the same: invent, validate, license — then move on to the next problem.

• 🔬 How he founded Prometheus Surgical as a medical student, raised £170k, and sold it to De Souter Medical in FY1 — the robot is now in use on patients as the Solito

• 🫁 Building a low-cost ventilator during COVID with Red Bull Advanced Technologies — and why the project was shut down just as it started working

• 🚴 Co-founding Scarpa, an e-bike electrification company with £14M raised and products now stocked in 70 UK shops — without touching the business side

• 😷 Licensing an analgesic mask to Intersurgical that is currently in clinical trials at St Mary's — patient-controlled inhalational anaesthesia for procedures that don't need a GA

• 🤖 Why AI has turned invention into Lego bricks — and how a project that would have taken a year now takes three weeks

Alastair's story is a masterclass in finding your unfair advantage, building a playbook around it, and having the discipline to hand everything else to someone else.

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What happens when a Consultant Psychiatrist, NHS Digital Exemplar leader, and GIRFT national lead decides the only way to truly fix children's mental health services is to leave the NHS and build an AI startup?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Guy Northover, Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Chief Clinical Information Officer at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and co-founder of Anathem — an AI company that has reduced frontline mental health admin burden by 61%.

• 🚗 Why he quit A&E, bought a Land Rover, and drove to Ghana to work out what he actually wanted from medicine

• 🏥 How Berkshire Healthcare became one of only seven mental health trusts to achieve Global Digital Exemplar status — and was already COVID-ready before the pandemic hit

• 📊 His work as GIRFT National Clinical Lead for CAMHS, and how data alone helped halve the number of children admitted to inpatient units nationwide

• 🤖 Co-founding Anathem with a chance conversation at a children's hockey match — and why a 61% reduction in admin burden is changing whether clinicians stay or leave the NHS

• ⚖️ The uncomfortable reality of managing conflict of interest as a senior NHS leader running a startup in your own specialty — and why it's worth navigating anyway

• 💡 Why senior clinicians make the best founders — and how vibe coding with Lovable has made him a one-man product team

Guy's story is a compelling case for why the NHS needs its most experienced leaders to take the entrepreneurial leap — not despite their seniority, but because of it.

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What happens when a GP trainee with zero finance knowledge decides to break into healthcare VC — and ends up co-founding a clinician-led angel syndicate?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Meenakshi Jhala, NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow at King's College London, Chief of Staff at Syntax, and co-founder of Tiny Ventures and DX Capital — a clinician-led angel syndicate dedicated to funding the innovations healthcare actually needs.

• 🩺 Why guideline-driven medicine felt like being a tomato in a greenhouse — and what made her look beyond clinical training

• 📈 How she broke into healthcare VC as a fifth-year medical student with no finance background, conducting due diligence at Rise Asset Management

• 🤝 The relationship-building philosophy that unlocked every role she's ever had — and why 100% of her work has come through connections

• 🚀 Building Tiny Ventures as an accelerator for aspiring investors and launching DX Capital to fund what clinicians know actually matters

• 🧠 Why doctors can't just be badge collectors — and the difference between execution and ambition

• 💡 How she balances clinical practice, research, a startup, and an angel syndicate without attaching emotion to any of it

Meenakshi's story is a masterclass in curiosity, execution, and building a career that's genuinely yours — not the one the system designed for you.

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What happens when a cardiologist realises NHS IT is failing patients — and decides to build an AI clinician that actually listens?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Dom Pimenta, a former NHS cardiologist who left clinical practice to co-found Tortus AI, an intelligent ambient voice interface for clinicians backed by Entrepreneur First and Khosla Ventures.

• 🏥 Why Dom's Catholic upbringing and childhood obsession with death led him to medicine — and why he eventually left

• 🧠 The frustration of watching NHS IT systems fail clinicians and patients, and the moment he decided to build something better

• 🔧 How Entrepreneur First helped him pivot from doctor to founder, and the reality of raising venture capital as a clinician

• ⚖️ The ethics of AI in healthcare — why "human-in-the-loop" matters and what Dom learned from deploying AI in live clinical environments

• 📈 What Tortus AI actually does, how it works, and why ambient voice interfaces might be the future of clinical documentation

• 🎯 Dom's advice for clinicians considering the leap into healthtech entrepreneurship — and what he'd do differently

Dom's story is a candid exploration of what it takes to leave a secure clinical career, bet on yourself, and build technology that might actually fix the system you left behind.

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What happens when a doctor spends a decade at McKinsey, returns to the NHS, and creates a Chief Innovation Officer role from scratch?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Rishi Das-Gupta, former Chief Innovation Officer at Royal Brompton Hospital and now CEO of Health Innovation Network South London and DigitalHealth.London.

He shares how he went from covering the whole hospital overnight as a junior doctor to reshaping how the NHS adopts technology at scale.

• 🏥 The one-in-four on-call rota that showed him what the NHS was getting wrong

• 🧮 Why he left medicine for McKinsey — and why two years became ten

• 🧠 Building a US healthcare practice and lessons from data-rich industries

• 🔧 Returning to the NHS after a decade away and creating a Chief Innovation Officer role

• ⚖️ Why implementation beats strategy — and making change happen inside hospital systems

• 📈 The future of NHS digital transformation and why he's optimistic about what's next

Rishi's story is a masterclass in leaving medicine, gaining industry perspective, and returning to transform the system from within.

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What if the path to your true calling isn't through following expectations, but through recognising where your real talents lie?

In this episode, we speak with Dr James Somauroo, former anaesthetist turned health tech entrepreneur, who transformed his realisation that he was "better at fixing the system than treating patients" into a remarkable career building the infrastructure for health innovation.

• 👨‍⚕️ From immigrant family expectations to discovering his true strengths lay elsewhere

• 🏛️ The Bruce Keough Fellowship and co-founding the Clinical Entrepreneur Programme

• 🚀 Leading Digital Health London Accelerator and running his own health tech accelerator

• 💰 The £40M fund that almost was—lessons from a deal undone by COVID

• 🎙️ Building SomX from scratch with his wife Jess, bootstrapped to success

• 💡 Why clinicians should seek purpose, not just "any port in a storm"

James's journey from reluctant doctor to communications agency CEO reveals how embracing your authentic skills—even when they defy expectations—can lead to extraordinary impact.

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What happens when four radiologists decide to build a health tech company while still working clinically – and end up raising Series B funding while hiring junior doctors into non-clinical roles?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Farzana Rahman, a consultant radiologist and CEO of Hexarad, a technology and services company that helps hospitals deliver faster and more efficient radiology reporting. Her journey reveals how clinician founders think differently about scaling, hiring, and the future of health tech in the UK.

• 🏥 The path from consultant radiologist to startup founder – without a business background

• 💻 Why four radiologists founding a company together was never really a question of who'd be CEO

• 🧠 The unique qualities junior doctors bring to startups (and why tech companies need them)

• 🚀 Building Hexarad as a side project, then making the leap to full-time founder

• ⚖️ Scaling a Series B company with a radiologist–led executive team – and the challenges of health tech in the UK

• 🤝 Radical candour, coaching, and building a culture where people aren't afraid to ask for help

Farzana's story reveals how lived clinical experience becomes an unfair advantage in building for healthcare – and why the best startup founders might just be the ones who've already thrived under pressure.

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What happens when a burned-out registrar ignores consultant warnings and teaches himself code—then builds AI tools that bridge clinical care and startup innovation?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Paul Jewell, a medical doctor and health tech entrepreneur who co-founded Assuric, a compliance platform for digital health companies, whilst continuing to work as a locum clinician.

• 🏥 The family legacy of medicine and why Paul initially pursued it — despite a growing itch for technology

• 💻 Learning to code on exhausted NHS shifts: the frustration that sparked his pivot

• 🧠 The NG tube AI project that never was — and how competing priorities taught him about focus

• 🔧 Building hospital apps that solve real clinical problems, from guideline access to diagnostic support

• ⚠️ The "grave mistake" warning from consultants — and why Paul took the career break anyway

• 🚀 Co-founding Assuric and staying clinically active: why doctors make better health tech founders

Paul's story reveals how sometimes the moves your mentors warn against lead to your best work — and why lived clinical experience is an unfair advantage in building for healthcare.

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What happens when an anaesthetist with a passion for physiology discovers the world of sleep medicine — and decides to build a tech startup to solve one of healthcare's biggest undiagnosed problems?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Tom Chambers, an anaesthetist, sleep medicine specialist, and co-founder of Theta Sleep. Tom shares his journey from traditional medical training to founding a health tech company that's bringing sleep apnea care from hospitals into patients' homes.

• 🏥 The accidental discovery of sleep medicine during an F2 respiratory rotation at Barts

• 🧠 How a chance meeting at a WIRED Health conference led to consulting opportunities

• 🔧 The leap from clinical practice to startup life — and the challenges of learning on the job

• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Building Theta Sleep with his brother as CEO — and navigating that unique dynamic

• ⚖️ Why sleep medicine is perfectly positioned for tech-enabled home care

Tom's story is a masterclass in following curiosity, saying yes to opportunities, and building a business that solves a genuine healthcare need at scale.

What happens when a junior doctor leads the biggest NHS dispute in a generation — and then builds a global medical education organisation?

In this episode, we speak with Dr Johann Malawana, an obstetrician and former chair of the BMA's Junior Doctors Committee during the high-profile 2015-2016 contract dispute. He is now the founder and CEO of Medics.Academy, a global health education company, and holds several senior academic roles.

• 🏥 How Johann fell into medical school politics — and ended up chairing the BMA

• ⚕️ The reality of leading industrial action during the junior doctors contract battle

• 🧠 Why he founded Medics.Academy and scaled it into a global edtech platform

• 🔧 Lessons from balancing clinical practice with entrepreneurship and academic leadership

• ⚖️ The importance of maintaining your clinical identity while building outside medicine

• 📈 How to navigate high-stakes negotiations and emerge with your principles intact

Johann's story is a masterclass in leadership under pressure, taking calculated risks, and building a career that spans clinical practice, politics, and technology — without losing sight of what matters.

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