Career options for clinicians outside the NHS — Dr George Leidig

At BiteLabs, we teach healthcare professionals the skills required to build impactful careers in healthtech. We’re profiling some of the amazing clinicians who already work in the field. A lot of our previous articles share the experiences and advice from healthcare professionals who are involved with product management or consulting. In this article, we are summarising key insights from Dr. George Leidig, Founder and CTPO at Oto Health. 

Tell us about your job in healthtech. 

I am the Founder and Chief Technology & Product Officer at Oto Health. We provide help to people looking to manage their tinnitus with tools like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and teletherapy. I’m the main developer and I lead the product team in search of the fabled product-market fit.

How and why did you get into it?

I served as a General Duties Medical Officer (GDMO) in the Royal Navy. My decision to engage with an app involving tinnitus outside of clinical medicine involved some key factors: 

1. Lack of interest in a particular medical speciality 
2. Interest in starting a business
3. Passion for technology
4. Personal struggle with tinnitus
5. Struggle in treating patients with tinnitus in clinical medicine 

After a few ludicrous app development quotes from agencies I decided to pick up a Udemy course and build it myself. I worked 3–4 twilight shifts a week as a locum in my local ED to pay the bills until we raised our first investment round and could start paying myself a salary.

How does it compare to your clinical career? (Enjoyment, perks, work life balance etc)

There are many differences: 

1. Working hours: I currently spend evenings and weekends fixing bugs, trialling new ideas, and other tasks to keep the business afloat. 
2. Work environment: More relaxed, friendly, fun and flexible in healthtech.

Here’s a little insight into my daily routine (which can heavily vary): Start at 10 so I have time to go to the gym in the morning and still get a good sleep in. I aim to finish around 6 but it really depends on what’s happening that day. If there’s no meetings I’ll often slink off a bit early and finish my more mundane tasks on the sofa watching Netflix.

Working hours can change over time as well. For instance, working hours were more difficult to manage initially and caused an occasional strain in my relationships with friends and family, but I’m much better at managing the balance than I was at the start.

How is it related to medicine/nursing/pharmacy etc — why were you suitable?

Three main ways where I think my medical training has been relevant in healthtech:

1. Experience managing patients in clinical practice
2. Providing me with credibility to raise money
3. Providing me with credibility to build relationships with other businesses

However, #1 is less relevant than the latter two. 

Anything you’d do differently if you had the time again?

Ultimately if I could go back I would skip medical school and start a business straight after my GCSE’s or A-levels.

How could someone go about getting into your field?

Pick an idea, hustle your way to an MVP and start making money or demonstrating some traction with your customers. Your first idea might be bad but that’s ok. If you keep going you’ll land on the right thing eventually. Locumming is a fantastic way to support yourself during the tough early days.

What can I earn?

We set our own salaries. As a seed-stage founder I’m roughly on the same as what I earnt as a GDMO. I think most health-tech founders cap their salaries around £100–120k once they’re Series B+. The big money comes with an exit, although I understand these are relatively rare in healthtech when compared to many other startup fields.

If you were starting out without any tech experience, how would you go about getting into the field?

1. Pick a programming language (I recommend Python or JavaScript)
2. Watch YouTube courses or enrol in Udemy courses. 

I personally used Udemy, and would not recommend investing more than £50 in this. 

It is not necessary to be good at programming, but it is helpful to understand basic concepts (especially as a founder) such as: 

• Git version control
• Product analytics
• Differences between front-end and back-end
• Testing and Quality assurance 

Dr. Leidig’s brave and interesting decision to start his own company is certainly inspiring, and we hope that his tips are useful for some of you hoping to take a similar path. If you’re a clinician (current or former) doing something interesting outside of a traditional career — please get in touch! We’d love to feature you in our next blog.

If you’re looking to start your journey in healthtech, visit bitelabs.io to sign up to our cohorts.