Microdosing

with Paul Schrimpf

Introduce yourself.

I'm a healthcare executive. I lead the healthcare practice for a management consulting firm called, Prophet. I work in an industry with some incredibly smart people. It's also an industry where too many people think they know more than they do, and make naive decisions. In addition, it's an industry that likes to use fanciful terms to flaunt people's thinking. I'm a person that believes that you can be smart and talented, be vulnerable, and use clear language along the way. I take complex healthcare issues -mostly on the business side of things- and make them relatable to my listeners so they can take that learning back to the organizations and make them better.

“Healthcare content has a bad habit of getting overly philosophical and loves to get lost in elaborate, loaded terminology. Sometimes we just need to cut the bull and have real, honest conversations about real things.”

- Paul Schrimpf

Share an experience that has shaped who you are today.

Healthcare is full of personal stories, and moments that spurred someone to take on a career industry. But I'll actually start with the experience that spurred my podcast: I was listening to a physician panel. Twenty minutes into an hour panel discussion, we were still on long-winded introductions. The doctors were sharing ALL of their education and ALL of their professional roles. It was a whole lot of "me me me". Worse yet, they were touching upon a variety of philosophy and macro trends. Not a single tangible point was made. The audience didn't learn one new thing that was relevant to them. The sad part is that -in many ways- I heard this presentation before. It was yet another long-winded theoretical conversation about what is wrong with healthcare and what needs to change ...philosophically! It wasn't wrong. It wasn't unintelligent. It just wasn't useful. That's when I decided to start my podcast, and it very much parallels my style as a healthcare consultant: We have to get out of these blowhard conversations in healthcare and start talking about real things, real products, real business, and real people. Things that we can relate to, learn from, and take action to make healthcare better.

Tell us about your podcast audience.

My audience are senior healthcare executives that want an honest opinion. There are lots of places to get facts and trends in healthcare. My audience is seeking an opinion and my personal take on those things. Sometimes they agree with me. Sometimes they don't. Regardless, I hope get a laugh out of them at some point and still push a debate forward in a serious manner.

What makes your podcast unique?

In a sea of long-form podcasts, especially in healthcare, I strive to keep my episodes to ten minutes or less. At worst, no more than twenty minutes. It's the anti-blowhard healthcare podcast. I have a topic. I make the points. We wrap-up. Within that, I celebrate a specific product, company, and/or person that's doing it right. And sometimes dare to do the unthinkable on a healthcare business platform, and call BS on people or companies focusing on the wrong things.

In Maurice Sendak’s book, Where the Wild Things are, a boy
named Max finds himself in an exotic world of the Wild Things. In the world of healthcare, understanding “where
the customers are” can often seem equally exotic and hard to understand. We’ll touch upon that in this episode.