From Steel to Stethoscopes: Dr. Susan Pearce on Embracing Change in Healthcare

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Live in the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is Dr. Susan Pierce, a leader who truly knows that you don't have to have a proven roadmap to do extraordinary things. Dr. Pierce started out in engineering, she has a PhD, and she was originally in mining and consulting, but she decided to make a low pivot and go into a field of healthcare that you know she had to rebuild credibility and work under uncertainty. Now Dr. Pierce is the CEO of a general advocacy in Australia and advocates for preventative health care and improved health care in community. So we're going to be talking to Dr. Pierce about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

My pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Well, don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Uh yeah, I'd love to. Now I I studied engineering when I when I left university. I never honestly expected to be ever into advocacy and healthcare, and I my research was in steel, so residual stress in steel worlds. Very, very technical. I traveled around and uh it gave me a bit of a passion for thinking about um fixing fixing things, which um I very much noticed in hindsight. And then I when I finished finished my PhD, I went to remote rural South Australia and Queen, South Queensland. So I spent a lot of time doing engineering projects in rural places, and it was very much a place I I learnt again, you have to plan, you have to be prepared, because if you've forgotten the a couple of um screws to do up to do up your uh structure, it will take you a couple of days to get them brought in. And I uh so I worked worked in Australia, worked remote Australia, and that was directly with the with the site people, and I I got that real experience. Um and I and I have to say I value I suggest everyone always goes out and work with the people, feedback every way, and and learn so much about what you need on the ground and the coal face on an engineering front. And then I decided I wanted to be with my partner in the city a bit more rather than traveling week in, week out, and I started consulting. And I think that was where I really took my rural experiences and was able to plan. And again, I and much of my hindsight is how important planning is, and um but it was all managing teams of engineers, budgets for engineers, working for the client, and very much um I look back on it and it was very, very making money and business focus. And then just it but coincidentally at the start of COVID, I was starting to feel a little bit uh frustrated, and I was talking, talking to a a doctor that I know who said, I need someone to manage manage my general practice. I said, I I I know how to manage contracts, but uh I'm not sure I know how to run a business and general practice. I you know doctors, I only know about it because I go there. He said, give it a go. I reckon you've got some good experience. And so I sat down and we I thought about it a long way, and I thought, no, this is a this is a plunge I want to take. I want to start challenging myself. And um, I mean obviously we all know what happened in 2020. I jumped into it in in the middle of February, and then Australia went into lockdown before I'd been in the job for two weeks. So I was I was also as well as learning a completely unfamiliar area, I was meeting my team of 80 odd people via via Zoom, and and uh that's when I realized so much, you know, that whole planning process I'd had is so important for healthcare and and making that change across. So I was able to learn the technical bit parts of healthcare, but my planning and preparation mindset from engineering uh was something that they that I could really bring to the table.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Well, when you first transitioned, what what were the biggest challenges in rebuilding your credibility and how did you overcome them?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Uh so the biggest challenge I think was understanding the different terminology. Uh in healthcare, it's very much government focused, and they felt that I was too focused on on money and didn't understand when they talked about um what we call we call MBS and getting rebates and and payments from the government as well as the people. And I came from very much a business where we had a set amount and we charged the client. And it was very much about listening to the team when they said that isn't how we do it, and going, okay, please, I I'm obviously I've got a different mindset. However, I know we still, you know, we still have a business. How do I transition that um mindset of having a purchase order before you do anything to to working with the government and working with the patient and working with those individuals? It it probably took me um a good six months to to rebuild that with all of the leaders in the practice, and and unfortunately I didn't get the chance to see the staff until a bit later. And um it it I the other thing that I think helped with that was being able to translate in a in a in a corporate mentality the information coming from our government telling us what to do with COVID.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Well, you know, many people wait until they're fully ready to make a change, to make that change. Uh what have you learned about making important decisions when you don't yet have all the answers and things aren't so clear yet?

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Oh, that's a I I know almost every time someone offers me a new opportunity, I feel fear and and a little bit of panic. And I've noticed that it took me a long time to realize because I said no to various things. And then I sort of I was I was talking to a couple of people about it. I said, is that fear and panic, or is that excitement and adrenaline and the looking forward to a challenge? And I sat there and I thought about it. I say, you know what, they feel very, very similar, fear um and excitement. There's a lot of a lot of similar feelings, and so sometimes what we think is fear and terror, and I don't want to do this. If you just look at it in a different lens, you realize this is actually this can be excitement. And I have realized very much I like trying new things. I do love things that I I understand, but trying new things, and I always do research. Uh when I when I took my put my break between, I'll get some books, different types of leadership, reading about health, but it's learning that those feelings of of terror uh are also incredibly similar to similar to excitement. And I can find that now embracing those two different, is this fear or is this a little bit of nervousness and excitement as well as fear, how much of it's which one, and and finding that sometimes, yeah, there's a lot of interest and excitement when you're starting something new, very new as well. So if you wait till you're ready, you don't, you you never, you never get you never get there because you have to, you really have to try flying before you can fly as well. So embracing that that emotion and giving it a go anyway, is really what I've I've learned about trying new things.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Well, I know throughout your career you found yourself in environments where you are the minor in the minority. So talk about how that those experiences have shaped your leadership style and confidence.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah, I I it is still the case in definitely in Australia that that women are there are less women in engineering. So I have um, and even when I was doing my research at the university and studying, we had a hundred students in my year and two of us were female. So it was I've always sort of found myself in the minority then. And that that is um, it's it's very much I've I've had times when I've had imposter syndrome and I've found that the people around me uh will look at me and I'll think, I don't, I don't think I'm as good as as I as I want to be. I'm not sure they can see me. And I think some of that comes from being the other person in the room, but the only the only female in the room. And I come back to a lot of study and research, and you know, I do taking a leap into something, waiting till you're ready. I probably have spent a lot of my career making sure that I've got the research, that I've got the backing, that I understand I'm correct. And it is it is learning to uh to to to some extent take that that um uncertainty again and embrace it, learn a little bit and be willing to acknowledge I can react to the people around me when I'm the only one, only female in the room. And I mean it it is sad to say, but I've walked into meetings where I've been the only female in the room and I've been the lead mechanical engineer, the project manager, and someone has assumed I'm there to uh bring the coffee and the snacks, it's it still happens. Uh but but embracing that uncertainty, making sure I know what I'm doing, and at times being willing to make that that leap, um it is almost as though you get used to it. There's always a moment when you sometimes when you notice and then you say, no, no, I'm comfortable with this, I've learnt a lot, I I'm being comfortable with the discomfort, and um and uh sometimes enjoying, really enjoying challenging the stereotypes that people put in front of you.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Were there moments uh during your transition that you you question whether you made the right decision? If so, uh talk about those moments and talk about how you made it through.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Oh yes, oh yes, very, very much so. Uh and and and it and it is an interesting one.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

The first six months or so when I was getting to know the staff and when they were telling me this isn't how we do it, my friends in engineering were talking about, as long as I was still catching up with them on the phone, um, they were talking about uh the projects they were doing, and I was thinking, one of the things that I loved about engineering is when you've been a part of building or designing something, you can walk past that and you can point to it. And I still do this with some of my projects and say, I I did that, that that building, that power station, that pumping station, the water that you're getting to your houses. I built that, and I didn't have that in the medical field. It was so it was less physical, and that was probably one of the biggest hurdles I had to come across with. I was no longer pointing to a thing and saying, um, this is this is what I've done. I was I was as as in a physical thing, I was pointing to a concept. Um I think I really started to feel comfortable and as though I was um enjoying and and didn't want to go back when we started doing, when we started running our COVID practices, our COVID testing practices, and I could see, even though there was no building that I could point to, I could say, no, we have helped detect, you know, we've tested 500 people this week and we've shown they don't have COVID, so they can go out and they can do things. And that's me helping with the staff, helping the managers. Uh so interestingly enough, just thinking about it, it was a project. It was completing a project that made me feel comfortable that I could that I could handle it. It was hearing from the staff, it was making changes with them, uh, so that I had something that I could point to that I'd done, even if it wasn't, even it wasn't something physical.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Well, what leadership lessons lessons from mining and engineering uh that have probab that have surprisingly helped you succeed in healthcare?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

This is this is that that preventative, that planning. It's it's um it is the one that surprised me the most. Uh in engineering, we talk about the project life cycle, and we talk about when you make a change at the start of a project life cycle, and we tend to talk about cost, and we don't necessarily mean money cost, we mean time and materials and people. And if we as engineers do some risk assessment, make some design changes in the first part before we've started the project, we save time, effort, money, and it means the downstream construction is so much better. And that truly is where I've been really surprised. I feel as though that's exactly what preventative health is. We're making a change, we're having a look before the illness progresses, or before when we've just detected that someone has the potential to get ill, which means that in terms, and I and it is again, it is in terms of yes, monetary cost, but it is in terms of quality of life, it's in terms of the family, and that that that is the biggest surprise I've had that engineering is about planning for the future to minimize to minimize effects, and that is what preventative health is as well. It's this it's all um it's all thinking ahead and trying to find it before it comes out.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Well, let's talk about your advocacy for um preventative uh health care. Talk about that and and then talk about uh what what changes do you feel like will have the greatest impact on community health in the next decade?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Oh, that's an exciting. So the so in the advocacy work, we it's again that preventative health program. And we we say in in Australia and I think I think um in other countries as well, we have um the general practitioner doctors who do see most of the cases and then refer. And what we're advocating for, first of all, is for them to be fully integrated or to have have more of a conversation, the system to get compensated more because at the moment people have to pay still quite a bit to see their general practitioner, and we know that means they delay going because not everyone can. Sometimes, especially right now, there's a choice sometimes between feeding the family, getting fuel for the car, or going to see the doctor for something that's just a niggle that maybe you can put off. So we advocate to the Australian government, to the governments in all the states and the territories, and say, look, support general practice, support that first line of health care, but not just general practice, you know, the general practitioners refer to the physios, they return to mental health, they refer to sometimes exercise physiology, um, the connection with the sport and the community. If you're out being active in the community, your mental health improves, your physical health improves. If you have got an illness, it's gotten going to be less of an effect on you. So we sort of we sit in that space and say that community healthcare keeps people well and keeps them out of hospital. We have we have a couple of key disease focuses though. Um, one of them, and again, it's all that a lot of it's that preventative. So we look at lung cancer, trying to get general practitioners and support GPs, sorry, general practitioners to catch people with early symptoms, to start to get them either put into the screening program so they can be checked and have a look at what else we look at, breast screening, so that try and encourage GPs again to to help get people to get screened, because when if if you have cancer, the earlier you catch it, the the better the survivability. And most certainly breast cancers 100% survival if you catch it early, even if it's a even if it's a bad and aggressive cancer. So we say everyone should be getting screened. Um currently, and I I know um lots of other countries have um breast screening programs as well. In Australia, only around about 50% of women participate in it. And our lung cancer screening program is really just getting started, so we're very excited to be a part of that. And so we're trying to say if you get into that, telling the government to get the GPs, getting into that, uh, and and making sure that people are caught early. That's where that's where most of our advocacy is is about looking after the high-risk people, making sure they get supported health care. And we say if we can say spend a dollar in in the early stages of of health, we know we can save $10, $12 in hospital. So it is a it is a sensible budgetary decision, because often that's exactly what you need to take to appeal to the to the government. You were talking about um as well the qu the other question was what changes in the next 10 years of healthcare? Was that that was the other part of the question?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, what what what um as far as uh community health, what do you feel like the greatest impacts um you you're gonna see in the next decade?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Uh I think it's um it's a bit just at least one uh I think artificial intelligence. Uh there are some really, really interesting, and and I think when I say artificial intelligence, I am I think using the the the colloquial term, but when we're in engineering, we called it machine learning, uh taking large parts of data and having a look at what it predicts as a really important part, I think, that artificial intelligence can take that can help to identify people who are at risk. My personal philosophy with community healthcare is we know a lot of statistics about who gets who gets sick and how they get sick. And frequently you say, okay, you've got this type of cancer. Statistically, we think you've got three months to live. And those parts of the conversation and that analysis, I feel more and more can reliably be done by artificial intelligence so that the individuals and the people and the community. Can take it back to how can we help you? How can we support you? So that we're mixing that overall what I would call statistical methods with the humanity. And it's um, and I think artificial intelligence can do a lot of the scientific, okay, you're at risk. All right, let's have a look at you and design a personalised plan that meet that meets your needs, that meets your family needs, that meets your community needs. And they're so so that's what that's where I think there's the potential for really good integration of artificial intelligence. And I know I talk to people in Australia and and read papers, and we're starting to get um to build models that are that are have intelligent design behind them. You know, look at hospital data, say, okay, people with these symptoms often have this outcome. How can we help that person as a person, not just as a number? And that I think is often where we get true health improvements because too often we're just a number in the system. And if we can we can look at people as humans, they have better quality, they have better engagement, and they are happier. So I think that'll be a really big difference that if we play artificial intelligence correctly, we can really have that change.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Well, I know you talk a lot a lot about you don't have to have it always uh figured out before moving forward. What opportunities do you feel like you would have missed if you would have uh waited for certainty?

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Oh, oh my goodness. There's um when uh my whole career, I had probably two big, big things that I didn't wait for certainty that I just said, all right, I'll give it a go. And one of them was after my second child was born, um, I was going about to go back to work, and my boss called me and said, Look, we've got a rural job. Um, it's it's a week on site, a week back in the city, it's managing a large group of people. And I said, I've just and she said, she said, I think I wanted to ask you if you wanted to do it. I know you've just had the baby and you've got to work it out. And I had that exact that that the my stomach dropped away from me. I was full of fears like how can I go away from my baby? She's only eight months old. And my husband, who is absolutely an amazing carer, said, We can sort it out, we can we can make this work. I've got I know how to look after the two kids. You go give this a go, you're gonna be managing you know 20 people, you're gonna be on site, you're gonna be seeing all the people, and that project taught me about managing people all around Australia because I had um engineers from every state in Australia coming to the site. So they would work one week on, one week off as well. So I was having weekly meetings that um were all over Australia. Um, this was well and truly before the COVID shutdown, and that taught me about keeping in touch when you can't see people. And I just think if I had said, I have to be, I have I'm not ready, I can't do it, if I'd given into that fear, I never would have had that, I would say almost that acceleration in my skills. Um, and the other one was moving from running a general practice of the clinic to running the the advocacy and charity that I run now. And I I was originally quite nervous and I didn't, I didn't, I don't think I pushed as much as I could have. I fell back into governance and then I um I I sort of took those lessons that I'd learned and said, no, I might be uncomfortable putting myself out there, but this is how I make a difference. I'm doing it for the organization, I'm doing it for primary healthcare. Um, but there I I also went out and got coaching and external assistance because I thought I need someone to help me work through the courage. I know I have it, I just need to think about what these feelings means. And I think if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't, well, I probably wouldn't be talking to you right now, but I wouldn't be um putting putting a motion next month in front of a national organisation to to get um funded MRIs for for women with dense breasts. I wouldn't have written to all the state ministers to say, no, we need to, we need to think about how general practice comes and and be starting to have those conversations. So that's where they I definitely didn't feel ready to jump into them. But say, no, I know this feeling, I've learned this feeling. It's time to jump in and embrace it and just jump straight into the cold pool.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

What tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on, their listeners need to be aware of?

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Oh, look, the one that I'm I've got I've got two that I'm excited about. One of them's quite small, and one of them's a bit bit ambitious. Uh so in a couple of months' time, we are running our local um fun run, and we're going to dress up in uh costume to try to raise awareness for breast density. And my friend and I are both going to be wearing a giant inflatable um boob to if I if I can say that, and and doing the walk to raise awareness, to say men and women can both get breast cancer. Keep an eye out. It's many, many less men can get it, but one in 500 men get breast cancer, and the unfortunate side effect of the focus on women is they often get ignored. And so we want to make that point. Yes, you can get it too. Okay, not as many as women, but you can get it and have a look at your risk factors. So that's a that's one that I'm pretty excited about, and that's one I'm a little bit nervous about wearing and dressing and getting that that out in the in the community. But the other one, we one of our other advocacy projects is trying to support people with Alzheimer's. Um, this one's quite personal to me because a lot of my family members and extended family members and a lot of my friends, um, one of the things we know about Alzheimer is you have a you be better you're happier and you have a better, better longevity if you can stay at home. And what we're trying to do is use technology to see if we can help people to stay at home for longer. So we're um I'm working with a colleague at the moment, and we're sort of do we we're exploring if we want to start our own business to um to provide that support. Because GPs can't do it directly. General practitioners and the doctors, they don't need to have that knowledge. So we want to see if we can set up a business, um work with a couple of others and and provide the tools that people need to use technology to to support patients who are with Alzheimer's to stay at home. And what that looks like, we think might be um you know uh virtual reality social groups, um augmented reality doctors' appointments, uh going in the park with your friends when you're you're too frail to leave the house, but using using augmented and virtual reality uh trackers and and sensors to to see if someone's leaving the house when they shouldn't. But the connectivity can be to people who are living in another part of the country. So you're not moving your parent or or the person who's starting to s struggle in with you, they can stay in their house, and that keeps their memories and keeps their focus uh home for just a little bit longer. So those are two things I'm quite excited. One of them's a bit small and happening fairly soon, and the other's one that I think will probably take a few years.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Well, speaking of the uh men being diagnosed with breast cancer, I know there's a a wrestler that I just uh heard about a couple of days ago that was diagnosed and it was in a later stage, because I guess you know, like you say, men don't really get checked as much or they might get ignored. So uh people can keep up with everything that you're up to, throw out your contact info.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Uh so the website, my website is agpn.org.au. Um, I am on LinkedIn, Susan Pierce, and I am on Facebook as well, though I tend to spend most of my time on LinkedIn. That's uh yeah, that's how I can be contacted.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

We'll call to start with some closer start with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Oh, I think I've I've said it I I think the truly amazing thing that I've come to realize when health and engineering is all of us what we're trying to do is solve the problems at what I would call the planning stage. If you solve the problem early, you think about the risks, you don't get caught up in them because it's easy to get, especially with a lot of anxiety these days, but what can go wrong, what can we put in place? And it's it's finding out if people are sick early, stopping them from getting sick, that is where best quality of life comes in. I think that was it was really inspiring to me. I didn't figure it out until probably 12, 18 months ago. That there's that that is so similar for engineering and and medicine and you know, talking to my lawyer friends, like that's why you write a good contract. And you know, that it sounds very boring, but prior planning and uh and thinking about the consequences. That's my my my most inspiring thought that I've come up with, I think, so far.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

All right, ladies and gentlemen, uh go out that website one more time.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

Uh agpn.org.au.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. So visit that website to keep up with everything Dr. Pierce is up to and gonna be up to. And follow rate review, share this episode uh to as many people as possible, especially those who are looking to make a change and or face a lot of uncertainty in their life. Visit www.curveball337.com to keep up with all things living a dream and share the website and the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Dr. Pierce, thank you for all that you're doing in the healthcare space, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.