The Underdog Physician Podcast

David Norris on Building Affinion Health: AI Inbox Automation, Teams, and Engineered Luck in Healthcare Entrepreneurship

On the Underdog Physician podcast, serial entrepreneur and investor David Norris—co-founder and CEO of Affinion Health (AI-powered inbox and workflow automation) and an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner—shares his entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing passion, perseverance, and team alignment over perfect planning or chasing money. He describes early lessons from building fraud-prevention checkout keypad systems, argues “engineered luck” comes from raising opportunity through great teams, and discusses the emotional realities of exits, including a near-IPO lost to a market crash. Norris explains Affinion’s AI agent triages EHR inbox work (labs, prescription renewals, and upcoming patient messaging), cutting inbox volume 40–50% and freeing about five hours weekly, while avoiding regulatory risk by following provider-defined protocols rather than making clinical decisions. He covers fundraising (a $5M round), competitive strategy (embedding into EHRs, low pricing), investor red flags, mentorship value, intense time-boxed work habits, and a legacy goal of improving patient care by better equipping providers.

Dr. Rashika Bansal on Building HALT Clinic: Modern Metabolic Care, GLP-1s, and Physician Entrepreneurship

On the Underdog Physician podcast, host Anish interviews Dr. Rashika Bansal about her path from India to U.S. training in internal medicine and an NIH endocrinology fellowship that shaped her focus on obesity and metabolism, followed by work at Cleveland Clinic and a move back to the Northeast. She explains why she launched HALT Clinic to deliver more streamlined, closely monitored weight management and metabolic care amid growth of telehealth weight-loss companies, compounded drugs, and social-media misinformation. Dr. Bansal discusses the value of ABOM certification, HALT’s protocols including body composition tracking, CGM-guided nutrition personalization, and lab monitoring, and potential expansion into longevity, stress management, yoga, and peptides. She shares startup lessons on bureaucracy, marketing, delegation, team-building, bootstrapping, and balancing business ethics with medicine, plus work-life integration, exercise habits, supplements, and a legacy goal of improving women’s health and empowering female physician entrepreneurs. 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 01:02 Origin Story and Training 02:50 Mentors and Finding Endocrinology 05:30 Exploring Career Options 07:46 Why Start Halt Clinic 10:11 ABOM and Obesity Expertise 12:10 Halt Protocols and KPIs 14:57 Startup Lessons and Team 17:45 Co-Founder and Early Mistakes 21:12 Scaling Without Losing Quality 22:48 Bootstrapping and Knowing Numbers 25:09 Work Life Integration and Wellness 29:35 Advice Legacy and Closing

Dr. Minal Shah on Hospital Medicine, Clinical Informatics, and Building a Virtual Care Model

On the Underdog Physician podcast, hospitalist and host interviews Dr. Minal Shah, medical director of virtual care at CommonSpirit Health’s Mountain region and an informaticist on the CommonSpirit national team. Shah shares how early exposure to medicine led her to Baylor College of Medicine for residency and chief residency, why she chose hospital medicine for its acuity, variety, and shift flexibility, and how a 2021 Stanford AI in Healthcare conference sparked her transition into digital health. She discusses ways to build informatics skills, the importance of physician involvement in tool development, and how AI such as ambient scribes can reduce EHR burden while raising concerns about over-reliance. She outlines virtual hospitalist care models, emphasizes change management and clinician adoption challenges, highlights mentorship, recommends Designing Your Life, and describes her work on large-scale EHR implementation and an ideal interoperable, insight-driven EHR. 00:00 Meet Dr Minal Shah 00:54 Early Path to Medicine 02:38 Why Hospital Medicine 03:57 AI Conference Turning Point 04:53 Building Informatics Skills 07:38 AI and Patient Connection 11:31 Virtual Care Leadership 13:53 What Clinical Informatics Is 18:04 Virtual Hospitalist Models 20:53 Lessons Across Health Systems 23:00 Mentors and Career Design 29:14 Weekly Workflow and Travel 30:24 Legacy and Ideal EHR 33:23 Closing Thanks

Julio G. Martinez-Clark on BioAccess and Accelerating First-in-Human Clinical Trials Globally

On the Underdog Physician Podcast, Anish interviews Julio G. Martinez-Clark, CEO of BioAccess, about his path from electrical engineering in Colombia and an MBA in Boston to building a contract research organization focused on medtech first-in-human and early-phase OUS trials. He explains how his brother Pedro’s work revealed major U.S. barriers—IRB delays, FDA uncertainty, investigator access, patient recruitment, and high costs—driving startups overseas, and how BioAccess professionalized trials in Latin America, growing to ~40 employees and expanding to Australia, Eastern Europe, and biopharma. Julio shares how the pandemic forced remote proctoring with OR cameras and iPads, enabling 33 procedures and Zoom-based consent. He discusses why independent hospitals and patient access dynamics speed trials in Latin America, early regulatory confusion in Colombia that led BioAccess to push legal changes, team-building lessons, bootstrapping vs fundraising, launching and rebranding his podcast to Global Trial Accelerators, and his legacy goal of maximizing human impact, including updating Colombia’s clinical research law. 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:41 Julio’s Origin Story 02:59 BioAccess Is Born 05:02 Scaling Across Regions 05:43 Pandemic Trial Reinvention 08:42 Why LatAm Moves Faster 12:12 Regulatory Roadblocks 14:26 Building a Winning Team 17:13 Bootstrapping and Funding 19:14 Launching the Podcast 22:37 LinkedIn as Growth Engine 25:17 Life, Travel, Balance 27:29 Legacy and Law Reform 29:53 Closing Thanks

Dolores Hirschmann on Clarity, Scaling Responsibly, and Speaking to Grow Your Business

In this episode, we interview Dolores Hirschmann, a fractional CMO, TEDx organizer, and founder of Masters in Clarity, about her unconventional path from Buenos Aires to building and scaling businesses in the U.S. She recounts early ventures, directing an early online learning platform for a nonprofit, launching a clothing company with low-income women in Argentina, and running an afterschool language program partnered with Rosetta Stone. Dolores shares lessons from rapid growth while working with Grant Cardone’s 10X community, emphasizing sustainable scaling, strong teams, SOPs, and executing consistent marketing rather than chasing trends. She explains Masters in Clarity’s approach to building marketing systems, back-office processes, and signature talks to drive leads and conversions, and defines clarity as prioritizing and taking action to reveal next steps. She discusses TEDx events, finding mentors, strategic partnerships for funding, her four-day workweek, and her legacy goal of helping small businesses grow and become transferable or sellable. 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:53 Dolores Origin Story 01:36 Early Digital Marketing 02:12 First Online Learning 03:35 Manifesting the Future 05:26 First Ventures and Lessons 08:27 Scaling with Grant Cardone 10:25 Masters in Clarity Explained 12:33 What Clarity Means 15:16 Fractional CMO Framework 16:39 Building a Loyal Team 17:55 Underrated Growth Levers 18:48 Funding and Partnerships 20:25 Inside TEDx Organizing 21:58 Setbacks and Reinvention 23:46 Mentors and Top Events 25:28 Work Life Balance 26:28 Advice Legacy and Wrap