Dr. Cherniak 00:02

I don't think you can work at Rocket Doctor if you're just coming in for a paycheck, it's not gonna work. But you have to really, like, be interested in the problem, I think, and then, like, what we're trying to do, essentially, and I think most of our team is like, the folks on our team have been with us for anywhere from two to four years now.

Leah 00:20

Hi, thanks for being here, and welcome to Season Two of The Founder Mindset, brought to you by ATB. I'm Leah Sarich, your host, and I'm super excited to talk to more founders about the human experience of being an entrepreneur. In this podcast, we're digging into what it really feels like to build a company from nothing. I was a broadcaster for over 20 years. So, I've interviewed thousands of people, but entrepreneurs, not that many. And yet they have the best stories. They're solving big problems and they're creating incredible impact. But it is hard work. So, why would they do this? Let's find out.

Leah 01:06

Joining me today is Dr. William Cherniak, founder and CEO of Rocket Doctor, a digital health platform that allows physicians to provide comprehensive care to patients virtually. Hey, Bill, thanks for doing this.

Dr. Cherniak 01:21

Hey, no problem. Thanks for having me.

Leah 01:22

Where did we find you today?

Dr. Cherniak 01:25

Today, I am in Toronto.

Leah 01:26

Terrific. Well, listen, thanks for fitting this in. I know you're a very, very busy guy, and you're travelling all over the world, doing all the things, but that's why we wanted to talk to you.

Dr. Cherniak 01:36

Yeah, no problem. Glad to join. It's funny, I just got back from LA like two nights ago, actually, as well.

Leah 01:42

See, there you go. We knew it. Yep, I know you're all over the place all the time. Let's go right back to the beginning, as we do with all of these conversations. How did you first become interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

Dr. Cherniak 01:54

So, actually, it started about 12 years ago in the nonprofit space. In medical school, I went overseas to do an international global health rotation. And that kind of sparked a bunch of different sequence of events that led to me starting a nonprofit in 2012 called Bridge to Health Medical and Dental. And so it was interesting at that point, working mostly in sub-Saharan East Africa, and building this organization to support local partners, really as a volunteer, and again, a nonprofit charitable sector. And then over time, started to get to work on advanced medical devices and more technology-enabled services and these really rural remote communities on the kind of mountainside in Uganda. And then a project we set up with cloud-based teleradiology around pediatric pneumonia and point-of-care ultrasound led to a cover story on the science section in the New York Times. And that really kind of pushed me. Yeah, it was really sort of a surprise, but also interesting. And that kind of pushed me into the tech sector. And then, yeah, as an ER doc working across Canada and also in the United States, just seeing a bunch of patients coming to the hospital that didn't need to be there without patient primary care issues. So, that kind of tech push from the nonprofit side, combined with the frustrations of working in the ER domestically, kind of led to this idea in the fall of 2019 of Rocket Doctor, and then we were just kind of in the right place when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020.

Leah 03:19

No kidding, that's amazing. Okay, so tell me a little bit more about Rocket Doctor and what it actually is.

Dr. Cherniak 03:19

Yeah, I mean, you gave us a nice little shout-out, but the way I describe it is really a Shopify for physicians, so helping doctors to build and scale our own independent, largely virtual, but some hybridized in-person, virtual practices. And then we take all of those independent doctors and we put them onto a marketplace that we can direct at to patients. So, as a patient, you just see a single brand identity of Rocket Doctor, and you submit a request for a booking for an appointment, but we sit in the middle building software and systems, and we can then objectively match the right patient with the right independent physician to have the best outcomes in our cloud-based ecosystem.

Leah 04:01

Wow. And so what was the real motivation there? I mean, you talked a little bit about it, what you were seeing with the NGO, but what really drove you to go, I need to fix this, like this has got to get sorted out.

Dr. Cherniak 04:13

So, there's urban and rural healthcare in Canada, and then there's in the United States, you know, the same sort of thing, but also differences based on the kind of insurance that you have. So, on the Canadian side, working in an urban ER, it was very common that people would come to the emergency department with issues that could have been perhaps managed by their family doctor in an outpatient primary care setting, but you know, through no faults of their own, like people often don't know what's an emergency and what isn't and if the family doc isn't available, then you end up in the ER again, maybe through no fault of the family doc. Also, like, it's just an evening or a weekend or whatever. And so that was sort of frustrating thinking, you know, be great if we could get that out to people, to not have to come to the ER. And then in rural areas, and I work in rural emergency departments in both Alberta and Ontario, often see patients who just don't have a family doctor. Where there is no health care who might, you know, in some cases, have driven two hours to get to the hospital because it's the closest health care facility. So, the idea there kind of also building on the nonprofit stuff overseas was, you know, you can use this digital ecosystem to take docs that are in big, urban academic centers and beam them instantly out to patients in rural, remote communities.

Leah 05:21

Amazing. So, how does that work in terms of, like, who pays for it and like, that kind of stuff,

Dr. Cherniak 05:26

Yeah. I mean Canada, as much as possible, we try to base the system on your public health insurance. So for example, in BC and Alberta, it's fully funded under you know, MSP and Alberta Health Specialists in Ontario are fully funded in that way as well, with OHIP some nuances in terms of stuff we've had to navigate in the province the last couple of years, with some changes to virtual care reimbursement in Ontario. But then in the United States, we focus actually on Medicaid. So, that's the health insurance for folks at/or below the poverty line, pregnant women and children and that. You know, we take Medicaid in our group in the United States.

Leah 06:03

Amazing. So how does it work from a patient perspective, are they just like, Okay, I'm gonna log on to Rocket Doctor and just go, I need help, and just put a request in?

Dr. Cherniak 06:10

Basically, yeah.

Leah 06:12

Wow, that's pretty cool.

Dr. Cherniak 06:14

Yeah. It's funny people in Alberta when I talk to them, particularly because it's, you know, fully covered with your Alberta Health sometimes people give me a look and I'm like, you think it's too good to think it's too good to be true, don't you? And they go, yeah, no, it actually really works well. And so you just log in, you submit some details, you plug in your Alberta Health number, and you get matched with a physician who's in the province and licensed and certified.

Leah 06:32

That's incredible. And how quickly does this happen?

Dr. Cherniak 06:36

Yeah, we have a care coordination team, so they're available usually within between 15 and 30 minutes or so, depending on how busy it is, and the appointment with the physician is almost always the same day, usually within a couple of hours, and then, you know, the next day, if it's a bit longer. But that's kind of not as common. It might be like, if you book at midnight or something, you could book for the next morning.

Leah 06:57

That's incredible. That's amazing. What's the response been?

Dr. Cherniak 07:02

Yeah, I mean, it's been good. We've grown a lot over the last couple of years. And so, like, I think probably, like, a 5x in Alberta in the last year, for example, and then across Canada as a whole, we've probably doubled the patient volume since last summer.

Leah 07:16

Incredible, incredible. What does that tell you about what you've created?

Dr. Cherniak 07:20

I guess the people like it. It's funny, though, because when you're running a system, whether it's a hospital or a startup or whatever, you always hear when things go wrong, but you don't often hear when things go well, because you just don't. Anyways, it's funny.

Leah 07:35

It is funny. And actually, that's a theme that comes up a lot on this podcast, that you know, these founders sort of forget or just miss the wins, you know, and they aren't celebrating the wins.

Dr. Cherniak 07:44

Yeah. I mean, you can see how it happens. You just sort of put your head down and working on problem after problem.

Leah 07:49

Absolutely. Okay, so, let's take a moment to reflect, though. So, you're an ER doc, you're also CEO and founder of a startup, and you're a co-founder of an NGO, and that is a lot, Bill.

Dr. Cherniak 08:04

Yeah, it's a little busy. I guess.

Leah 08:09

I like how you're like, it's a little bit busy. No, that's kind of nuts. How do you do that?

Dr. Cherniak 08:04

It's just a balance of time, I guess. I used to joke, because I started my residency in general surgery, and so at the time, that was like 110 hours a week. And so, you know, you go to like a 40-50 hour a week thing, and you got a lot of time to spare in the middle. But I don't know. I think there's ways to balance your time, anyways.

Leah 08:32

Yeah, but that's a pretty tricky thing to do, you know, to balance your time. And then also, you travel so much. So, how do you even sort of stay sane and well, as a founder?

Dr. Cherniak 08:44

I have always been really into sort of the outdoors and athletics, so that's been my thing. So, like, for example, last night I had a very busy day, and then a couple of evening receptions, and I got home at like, nine o'clock and I ended up going for a run on the waterfront. And it's just like, nice to clear your head. And so, yeah, I find running or, you know, I actually like hiking or camping, canoeing, that kind of stuff. So, try to find ways to get off the computer whenever possible, I guess.

Leah 09:12

For sure, for sure. Now, I did do a little poking around on your background, Bill. And you're also a bit extreme, though, when it comes to some of these activities that you like to do to supposedly clear your head and relax. Like, you know, we're talking marathons, and you're doing these with broken shoulders and things like that. Do you think that's a little bit about just sort of your personality and how you roll?

Dr. Cherniak 09:34

Yeah, probably it's the ER, you know, Doc, sort of prototypical stereotype. I think I fit into that. I had done a triathlon in undergrad, and then in med school, me and two of my classmates did an Ironman in Montreal and another one in Mexico. So, that was fun to kind of get into that. Anyways.

Leah 09:56

I'm like, oh yes, there's no big deal. You always kind of did that. It's a big deal. That's nuts. Wow. Good for you. So, do you have time for even more of a personal life? Like, do you have a family? Like, what does that look like for you?

Dr. Cherniak 10:09

Yeah, I mean, you can always make time for the things I think that are important. No kids for me at this point yet, maybe someday in the future, but I have two nephews anyway, which is nice.

Leah 10:19

Oh, that's nice. That's great. That's wonderful. All right, I talked to every founder on this podcast about a pivotal moment in their startup journey. You and I talked about this a little bit. I have a feeling it has to do with a decision by the Ontario government. But tell me what happened.

Dr. Cherniak 10:35

Yeah. I mean, essentially in December of 2022 there were some big changes in the context of virtual care in the province. And we had really built Rocket Doctor initially. You know, the whole goal was to build for the public sector so that people could use their public health insurance to access care. And Canada, you know, was always like, 20 years behind the United States when it came to digital health. And the Canadian Medical Association produced a report before the pandemic saying the same thing, like, less than 1% of all health care was done virtually. Then when the pandemic hit, physicians were literally forced into using virtual care, in some cases, up to seven zero, 70% of all care was done virtually. And then it kind of, you know, rapid and provinces released temporary pandemic billing codes. And then it sort of started to swing in the opposite direction as people got frustrated and they said, Okay, time to go back to, you know, whatever, in person. But it's like, well, no, this is part of health care now. But unfortunately, in Ontario, there was a kind of misunderstanding about what virtual care meant. And the public prevailing wisdom was, it was the same thing as a walk-in clinic or urgent care, not that it was a, you know, tech-enabled service that could kind of improve access to care for people in the province. So, that was the, you know, prevailing media narrative, which was, it's a virtual walk-in clinic. It's not good for patients, as opposed to, it's a resource to help people without family doctors or in rural, remote communities access healthcare. So, funding was dramatically cut to virtual care if a patient didn't have a family doctor, or was in a rural community where they couldn't be seen in person first, such that physicians were no longer able to do the work because this wasn't feasible anymore. So, that was a really problematic moment, and we went from basically 800 patients a day to sort of zero overnight. So, we had to figure out a way to, you know, rebuild the system, which we've now done, but we had to create, kind of like a hybridized model in Ontario, and then we had to expand out, as we said, that, you know, it's been for the best. We expanded into specialty, you know, helped a bunch of psychiatrists that are now on the platform seeing patients through OHIP built with our team, a whole addictions medicine program with a really cool integrated model, with care coordination and specialists and primary care and mental health, and expanded to Western Canada and built the whole US side of things over the last sort of year and a half. So, it's been an interesting last little bit.

Leah 13:02

No kidding. So, I mean, when you go from, you know, all these patients to zero overnight, how do you process that? Like, emotionally, like, in your head?

Dr. Cherniak 13:16

I was watching the show Super Pumped at the time, and oddly, nobody had ever heard of this show, but it's–

Leah 13:21

No, what is it?

Dr. Cherniak 13:23

It's got a really big cast, like Joseph Gordon Levitt is in it, and it plays Travis Kalanick. It's about Uber, about the start of Uber. So, I was watching the episode where the taxi cab industry tried to shut down Uber in San Francisco. They do this whole, you know, take it to City Hall model, and we're gonna, you know, fight the power kind of thing. So, if you did something similar, where we emailed 150,000 people in Ontario to sort of say, this is what's happening. You know, you should be upset about this, and you should write your local MP in the province and the Ministry of Health. And we got 35,000 people to sign a petition, and we got some press, and we kind of took it out to get folks aware of what was going on. But yeah, it's difficult to sort of change direction when the government is moving in a direction, but I think people these days are starting to sort of realize more and more, oh, yeah, probably we want the ability for patients with no family doctors to get care, I mean, in rural communities, to get access to services. So, hopefully, we'll see kind of the wind shift back over time.

Leah 14:20

Yeah, no kidding, but let's just go back to that moment though. Like you are, your whole business model basically evaporates overnight. And how do you feel about that? Like, are you losing your mind? Are you screaming and hollering? Are you punching the wall? Like, what's going on?

Dr. Cherniak 14:36

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's, it depends on the time of day, or the day that we discuss cycles of grief, as you say, but yes, like going through the different kind of process of it all. I think the key thing was on December 1st because it wasn't clear it was actually going to happen, even like in the months leading up to the changes. It seemed as though it may be reversed right up until the day that it wasn't. And then that was when it was like, okay, yep, it happened. That's unfortunate. So, yeah, that sucked. But we had sort of started to prepare, you know, the writing was on the wall. It probably was going to go through. So, we started to prepare a month earlier with this hybridized, you know, public-private model, which we just had to do to keep the system going in the province. And so we had that ready on December 1st, and ended up launching it, which was tough, and then, but we just, you know, again, it was kind of heads down, just work on the solution, essentially.

Leah 15:30

Right. Did it ever cross your mind to go, Okay, well, forget it? Then, you know, it's just going to be too much.

Dr. Cherniak 15:35

Yeah. I mean, I think you'd be crazy not to think those thoughts at certain points. I think it's impossible. Sorry, not crazy, but I think it's impossible to not have those thoughts and then you just sort of recognize, like, what for me, it's always, Are we wrong? Is there no solution? And my sense is there's usually always kind of like a path somewhere you just have to, like, work really hard, in some cases, to get there.

Leah 15:55

No kidding, and working really hard is, like, different for you, I think, than, like, other folks, maybe not for a lot of the entrepreneurs, honestly, that we talk to, but there is something about that entrepreneurial spirit and that entrepreneurial personality where it's just like, heads down tackle the next problem, right? Regardless of how I feel about this, I'm just gonna check that over here and just get to work. Does that resonate with you?

Dr. Cherniak 16:20

Yeah, I think actually, there are some overlaps or parallels to the Iron Man, just sort of like one foot in front of the other. You just kind of keep going and yeah, like, quote, unquote, hard work. Yeah. That means something may be different to different people. But for me, it's kind of like, you just don't stop working until it's done basically.

Leah 16:38

Right, right.

Leah 16:42

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Leah 17:06

How do you stay motivated? Like, what keeps you going when the days do get really hard?

Dr. Cherniak 17:11

We talked about it right at the beginning. It's the resurfacing a little bit because you're in the weeds and the problem, but then more seeing the positive outcomes of the system. So, like seeing the interest from physicians that want to work with us, seeing the positive reviews from patients, talking to people at an event where, literally, this has happened half a dozen actually, at very low points. In fact, I'd be out somewhere in Toronto, or out in, you know, Alberta or something, and somebody would go, Rocket Doctor, I use that. And I'm always, oh, did you have a good experience, Is my next question, because I'm so used to people, you know, the negative feedback and oh yeah, it was. And almost everyone says, yeah, it was great, worked well. And so that's always kind of nice to get that.

Leah 17:50

Absolutely. That's encouraging, those little wins, right? Yes, just like we were talking about incredible, that's amazing. So, tell me a little bit more about this feeling that you have to solve these really big problems, like, we can even talk about, you know, the NGO to Bridge to Health, like, Why do you think you're the person to solve these problems?

Dr. Cherniak 18:11

Yeah, well, it's, I've been asked that question a few times, but in a more negative context of, like, Who do you think you are doing? Like, I don't know. I was in residency, when I started Bridge to Health, it was like, I'm just a person that went person that went to Uganda and thought, there's a problem, nobody else is doing it, so may as well try and do something if no one else is. And then I think over time though, I went back to school and did a master's of public health. And so the program I went to had us repeat the line, saving lives millions at a time, over and over and over. This was at Hopkins, and so it was just like a mantra that you and then they sort of think that program was helpful to conceptualize things at, like a population level. So, we take that approach with Rocket Doctor a lot as well, which is, you think about like a whole provincial healthcare system or national strategies, and how it's kind of different between areas and what we can learn from different places and impacts, you know, the whole population, not just like the group of people that are there.

Leah 19:05

Absolutely, you've talked about this before too. The idea of fighting that inequality that exists. How is that important to you?

Dr. Cherniak 19:14

Like, at a high level, it's obviously just inequitable for people not to be able to have the same level of care because of you know, postal code or zip code or whatever, but tangibly working as a doctor in those places, like seeing it firsthand, for example, when I worked in northern Ontario at a hospital and a young girl who lived on a gold mine and had just this horrific skin infection on both arms, and I couldn't even figure out what it was, at first, I realized, no, It's just like a really bad case of a very common kind of skin infection that had had no treatment for 10 days because they lived two hours from care, and so they had to drive two hours into the hospital, and parents were working all the time, and so we had to bring them back to the hospital every day for four days and make sure it was getting better as we got them on antibiotics and it did improve. But it's like those are the kinds of stories of, you know, had that person had a quick telehealth visit in their community at the beginning, it would have been like a $37 visit to the system. It would have been an instant, you know, response to the patient, and it would have prevented weeks of complexity and driving and cost and expense and ER visits. And so it just, yeah. It doesn't make sense.

Leah 20:21

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. And I love that you're just like, well, nobody else is doing it. So, you know, I know a couple of things, I might as well just get on this.

Dr. Cherniak 20:28

Yeah, basically.

Leah 20:32

That's amazing. That's amazing. You have incredible stories from Bridge to Health and the work that you're doing in Uganda and elsewhere. Can you tell me a little bit more about that, and what that has meant for you as a founder of an NGO and what informs the work that you're doing with with Rocket Doctor?

Dr. Cherniak 20:48

Yeah, you know, our model with Bridge to Health is on empowering local health workers and governments to kind of build their own systems and see how we can plug in to support that. So, you know, like something funny the other day, one of the clinics, so, in Uganda, largely the rural healthcare system is built up with clinical officers, which are like nurse practitioners, physician assistant equivalents. So, we work mostly in these rural communities with the clinical officers. And we set up education training programs. And we do these, you know, intense learning programs. You know, in medical like, education, at least, still do it these days. But you draw these, like, paper schematics of, like, I think, in algorithms, like, how do you, you know, manage whatever? And with, we have a thing called ACLS with how does the heart work? And I used to teach it at Sunnybrook, and so I was teaching it at the time in Uganda, like, seven years ago, and one of the clinical officers who's now finishing medical school in Uganda, sent me, like, some pictures yesterday with these things that I drew, like, seven years ago. So, I thought that was kind of neat.

Leah 21:49

No way, that's incredible.

Dr. Cherniak 21:48

So, he kept them in his notebook, you know, years later, which was kind of neat. Anyways,

Leah 21:55

How lovely. How does that make you feel when you hear those stories?

Dr. Cherniak 21:57

Yeah, no, it's great. Yeah, definitely.

Leah 21:59

That’s wonderful. Yeah, that's amazing. So, we've talked a little bit about the health work that you're doing, but you're also building a startup, and that presents its own challenges. You know, Rocket Doctor is a startup, and, you know, with that comes, you know, building out those pitch decks and, you know, fundraising. So, what has that been like for you?

Dr. Cherniak 22:20

That’s probably my least favourite part of the whole thing. But, you know, necessary to do it. I just find people sometimes will say, oh fundraising so easy. You just go out and you tell them your story and you get money. And I don't know that. I don't know if people listening to this that's been their experience, but everyone I've ever talked to that has not been their experience. It's like a very arduous, grinding process. You get a lot of no's, sometimes, in many cases, just because they don't understand what the business is and don't want to take the time to figure it out. So, it's sort of, you know, and you have to try to keep that that actually is usually a sign that you're doing a bad job as a founder, because you're not communicating what you do. So, you know, trying to reframe that to your instead of, like saying, Oh, well, they're the problem. It's actually, well, we're probably the problem because their decks are not good, the messaging is not good enough, and you got to figure out, like, how do you creatively market what you're doing, to explain it to people really succinctly. So, that is a real challenge, actually, to do, I think.

Leah 23:14

Absolutely, I think for most founders, it's a real challenge. Yeah, to your point, I don't think it's ever that easy, certainly not from the founders that I've talked to, and I've talked to a few, and I've talked to a few now. And yeah, it's, it's tricky. And to your point, it is a grind. How does that work for you when you're grinding it out, let's say fundraising, when you're still jetting off to the ER, I'm sure as well. How does that work?

Dr. Cherniak 23:36

Again, It's all balanced, I suppose, carve out, you know, time and make sure that the work gets done, I guess. And, yeah, it's certainly a different experience. Also, like, you know, sending emails about fundraising versus seeing patients in the emergency department. It's a different skill set. I was talking to someone the other day. It's almost nice to go work in ER shift, because I just say, I'm like a, you know, I'm like a line cook. I just go in and I chop the onions. I can see the patients. I go in. I know what I'm doing. It's a very different kind of set of skills in both places.

Leah 24:04

Absolutely, where did you learn the skills that you need as you're building your startup?

Dr. Cherniak 24:11

I mean, for Bridge to Health always gave a lot. Well, not always, but you know, start had to learn how to give presentations to get donor funds, to build the org. So, I’ve done hundreds of pitches for Bridge to Health to get donations over the years. So, that was sort of, I guess, a learning process over that period of time, much lower intensity and much lower scale, but still doing it, at least for sort of experience. I didn't have any sort of, like formal education or anything like that. But, actually I started a course when I was in LA teaching at USC on global health entrepreneurship, and I just actually taught, I teach it a five-day accelerated summer course at Hopkins once a year. So, we just did that course last week.

Leah 24:52

Wow. How did that go over?

Dr. Cherniak 24:54

Good, good. But It's a development lab, so students create a nonprofit initiative. And rather than, you know, do essays or assignments or tests, they create the actual thing, and they do pitches for the class. So, we kind of do like a presentation on like three times throughout the week until it culminates in a final pitch for 10 minutes.

Leah 25:12

Amazing. So, why did you want to do that? What did you do, why did you see the value in creating that program?

Dr. Cherniak 25:21

Yeah, I guess similarly, it was just I didn't find anything that existed that was like it previously, or that I thought was good so, and it was an opportunity to do it.

Leah 25:30

I love this about you. Well, again, nobody else is doing this, so I might as well just get after it. That's amazing, tremendous. So, at Thin Air Llabs, we talk often about creating global human impact, and it's part of our investment thesis. And I know creating impact is very important to you, I would like to talk to you about that. Let's talk about it for both, If you don't mind. When you think of creating impact, what do you think of when it comes to Bridge to Health, first?

Dr. Cherniak 25:55

Yeah, for Bridge to Health, it's really what are the kind of measurable, sustainable outcomes on the ground when we're not there? We send teams of interdisciplinary teams of doctors, dentists, nurses, and pharmacists, to do these kinds of high-intensity two-week clinical service provision programs in these rural, remote communities, but we embed our teams within the local Ministry of Health, and then have a variety of educational institutes and schools that are partnered with us, and we do education training. And the idea is to see that after, you know, we've built a foundation that the local healthcare workers can kind of continue to build on throughout the whole year. So, that's sort of the idea there, I guess.

Leah 26:39

Amazing. How often do you actually get down there?

Dr. Cherniak 26:41

Foreign folks go in only once a year. But we have these partners that are on the ground, that are the doctors and clinical officers running the healthcare system, so we're in touch with them throughout the year. And then, you know, we use those outreaches to kind of find key problems in the community and then build more infrastructure. So, like the ultrasound work that we had in The Times was because, you know, they didn't have X-ray facilities in these rural, mountainous villages, and they couldn't diagnose pneumonia in kids. This was bubbled up as a core problem for the local clinical officers. So, we just said, in 2017, okay, we're gonna figure out how to do ultrasound for pediatric pneumonia and then set up this, you know, teleradiology thing so the docs could upload images from this mountainside and then get a radiologist or an ER doc to give them feedback remotely so they could have ongoing service throughout the year, basically, even when we weren't there on the field.

Leah 27:29

Right, right from a mountainside.

Dr. Cherniak 27:33

Yeah, well, if there was internet otherwise, you know, the device that we were using, like, uploads to the iPhone, and then they can upload the images to the cloud once they get back to Wi-Fi after their clinic.

Leah 27:43

That is unbelievable. I can see why The Times was all over that. That's amazing. So, that work continues. How do you think about the long-term for Bridge to Health?

Dr. Cherniak 27:52

We took that project in Uganda, we left a ton of ultrasound devices and trained a bunch of people, and we still have teams that go back every year and do upgrades and new Pro. Now the Director of ultrasound for Eisenhower Hospital in Palm Desert is one of our medical leads from, we have a US branch of the nonprofit, and a Canadian, so he's on the US side, but he's, you know, still working with them every day, really, but then we ended up winning a grant from Grand Challenge is Canada to bring the program into Yemen. So, we trained a bunch of doctors in Yemen on how to use ultrasound to diagnose obstetric complications and trauma and also PEDS pneumonia. And then we won another grant to do it in Latin America and Peru on the Amazon so, brought it to different parts of the world, basically.

Leah 28:37

That's incredible. And I guess you just want to keep growing that.

Dr. Cherniak 28:41

Yeah, although now obviously it's busy with Rocket Doctor, so these days I'm the board chair, but we have a team that does day-to-day work, great.

Leah 28:47

That's amazing. All right, well, then let's talk about Rocket Doctor. When you think about creating impact, how do you think about that when it comes to Rocket Doctor?

Dr. Cherniak 29:01

We're already having a big impact, like we've seen over 350,000 patients on the platform, over 300 docs, and each day there's five to 600 people that go through the system, basically. So, you know, it's right now, we're bigger than any emergency department in the country, essentially, in terms of the volume of visits that comes through. And it's not just walk-in clinic, it's primary care, psychiatry, addictions, neurology, it's like everything you can think of happening on the system. So, already, it's a huge, you know, system that's running at scale, though, you know, it can look like a whole public health kind of infrastructure, but it, you know, regionally specific, plugged into, like provincial health authorities, or into managed care plans and Medicaid in the US market to really have the millions of visits as assposed to now.

Leah 29:45

Yeah, wow, the millions of visits. How do you feel when you say that? I can see a big smile crop up on your face.

Dr. Cherniak 29:52

Well, I don't really think about it until you ask the question. It just–

Leah 29:56

Is that right? Hey, you just cruise it along and you're not even really thinking about millions of people. Impacting the lives of millions– Okay, I'm gonna say it again for you, impacting the lives of millions of people. It's pretty amazing.

Dr. Cherniak 30:08

Yeah, I don't know. I just don't really think about it honestly, in the moment. Yeah.

Leah 30:14

Yeah. It's just heads down for you, yeah. What's it like when it comes to motivating a team for Rocket Doctor? I mean, you know emergency physicians, I know it's teamwork when you're in there, for sure, but I mean, building a startup is a whole other thing. You're, you know, you're managing a company now. What does that look like for you?

Dr. Cherniak 30:30

You know, I'm fortunate. I get to work with one of my brothers at the startup, as well.

Leah 30:35

That's cool, yeah. Or is it because, you know, sometimes siblings?

Dr. Cherniak 30:38

No, we have our moments, but we've come to a balance over the last few years. And so, yeah, he's got, it's a nice compliment, because, you know, he's got a business finance law background, and so helps to sort of manage that side around ops, finance, legal, collaborate, obviously, on those areas. And then I can really, you know, pick up and manage the clinical, medical. I have an interest in sort of engineering and AI and that kind of stuff as well. But I think what we try to do at Rocket Doctor is sort of what we've always done at Bridge to Health, which is like, be very mission-driven. So, not, I don't think you can work at Rocket Doctor if you're just coming in for a paycheck, it's not gonna work, but you have to really, like, be interested in the problem, I think, and then, like, what we're trying to do, essentially, and I think, I think most of our team is, like, the folks on our team have been with us for anywhere from two to four years now.

Leah 31:31

How big is your team now?

Dr. Cherniak 31:34

Not that many. Like, we have nine people who are full-time at the moment, but then we have a team of almost 30 doctors who are part of our physician advisory group, so they're across Canada and the US.

Leah 31:43

Amazing, incredible. How's the fundraising going for the startup?

Dr. Cherniak 31:47

Yeah, I mean, it's, as we said, it's always grind. We're, I don't know who this podcast goes out to, but we're in a fundraising round at the moment. Anyways, so, if anybody's interested?

Leah 31:57

There you go. Right. Everybody listening? Give them a call.

Dr. Cherniak 32:02

We got the first third and we got the last third committed. We got to get the middle third out, and then we'll be done, which will be nice.

Leah 32:09

That would be nice. Amazing, when you think of fundraising and building Rocket Doctor down the road, you're the founder, you're writing the story for Rocket Doctor. How do you hope it goes?

Dr. Cherniak 32:22

I hope it goes well. I guess. We just basically need to keep going and executing the plan we've been doing for the last couple of years, essentially. So, you know, we set out in December 2022. We, being my brother and I, really, we set out a plan for the next, you know, couple years of things that we wanted to do in terms of technology and Canada and the US, and we're really, like, three-quarters of the way there to sort of what we had set out like, pretty well on track. So, just basically getting, you know, right now, like we operate like, I think most digital health companies at a bit of a loss every month as we've been growing the system and building products and engineering. So, getting to a point where the business is totally self-sufficient, profitable, which is around the corner, actually quite close, and then from an integrated with also public health infrastructure, because right now, we're really direct to consumers, so patients and doctors can use us, and it's funded by your provincial health insurance, but it's not integrated as well into the system as we should be or could be. So, that's kind of like the next phase. I think that would be really great.

Leah 33:23

What would that look like? That integration? How would that work?

Dr. Cherniak 33:26

Interoperability, you know, so that your records are all as a patient and four physicians are available to anyone anywhere. So like, if you're a patient, any doctor you're seeing has all of your records. But it's not just in this multi-100-page PDF thing. It's actually easy, succinct, you know, visible, and sort of follows you as you go to different places. Like, I think that's really the future, and we saw that sort of happen with or starting to move, anyways, with this Connecting Canadians Act that came out not so long ago. But hopefully, we'll start to move in that direction.

Leah 34:01

Tell me a little bit about that, the Connecting Canadians Act.

Dr. Cherniak 34:01

Yeah, it was this idea of interoperability, basically. And so in the in the US, they have the, you know, 21st Century Cures Act, which makes it law, federal law that EHRs have to share patient data if the patient wants it to. But we don't have that in Canada, so EHRs can't be compelled to share your data with another EHR, basically. You gotta enter in a special agreement with them and build the whole thing. And so that is not good for patient care side of things.

Leah 34:27

Right. So, you'd like to see that switched up, changed out, modernized.

Dr. Cherniak 34:32

Yeah, correct.

Leah 34:33

Right. Amazing, incredible. Okay, and then as a founder, so you're the founder, you've got your NGO and you've got Rocket Doctor. You're writing your own story. How do you see your story going as a founder?

Dr. Cherniak 34:50

Yeah, I mean, obviously continuing to get Rocket Doctor to that place we just discussed, where it is sort of self-sufficient and integrated, and in a really stable and growing place, which is, you know, self-sufficient like we've done with sort of Bridge to Health over the years as well. And then, I don't know, I'm not sure.

Leah 35:09

I expect something else might come along that piques your interest.

Dr. Cherniak 35:12

Yeah, I mean things I find for myself, it's always sort of organic, like something comes up. It seems like, as we talked about earlier, there's, uh, something that happens that hasn't, you know, could you use a little work, I guess. And then I sort of get interested in that. But we've been doing this for four years, and I suspect we'll be doing it for another four years with Rocket Doctor.

Leah 35:33

Yeah, and then I have to ask, as an ER physician, is that something you want to continue to do as well?

Dr. Cherniak 35:38

Yeah, I like going into the ER, I think a lot of my peers across the world, but, you know, I'm most familiar with Canada and the United States are feeling pretty burnt out from full-time emergency medicine work. So, it's much more sustainable doing, you know, like I do a few shifts every few weeks. That's much more sustainable from sort of a quality-of-life perspective. And so, yeah, I do enjoy doing it, at least for now, anyways.

Leah 36:06

Bill, this has been an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for this and for the work that you're doing.

Dr. Cherniak 36:10

Yeah, thanks, and thanks for the questions, and for taking the time.

Leah 36:14

You bet.

Leah 36:24

As the lead investor in Thin Air Labs - Fund One, Sandstone Asset Management believes in building the commons through innovative founders who are creating meaningful, positive impact, both locally and globally. Sandstone is doing just that by backing the next generation of emerging entrepreneurs. Picture this, a founder start-up goes from idea to international impact supported by strategic investors who believed in their vision. That's the power of Sandstone's approach. Sandstone doesn't just manage wealth, they cultivate it, supporting founders at all stages. Visit www.sandstoneam.com to learn how sandstone builds legacies that last.

Leah 37:06

The Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund finds, fuels, and fosters opportunities in sectors like aerospace, agribusiness and tech, creating a resilient and diverse economy, attracting world class talent, and solidifying Calgary as a launch pad for innovators. Discover more at www.opportunitycalgary.com    

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