Leadership Rounds with Dr. Reena Pande  

Episode 8: Rebecca Mitchell, MD: An Innovative Product Builder and Venture Investor

Product leader and Scrub Capital co-founder Rebecca Mitchell, MD joins Oxeon’s Dr. Reena Pande to unpack what it truly takes to lead in technology, product, and early-stage venture. She traces her journey from rural health inequities to global health innovation, digital product leadership, and now clinician-led investing, highlighting why the next era of healthcare will be built with clinicians, not around them.

Key Topics & Takeaways

1. 1. From rural health inequity to global innovation → UCSF → digital product leadership
      
      • Rebecca’s path began in a health care desert and expanded to global health work, where she witnessed extreme access barriers and the impact of context-driven innovation. At UCSF, the LifeWrap project (now an essential maternal-health intervention) showed her the power of diverse, cross-functional teams—planting the seeds for a career at the intersection of clinical insight, product thinking, and systems design
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   2. Clinicians strengthen product, strategy & business decisions
      
      • Clinical training brings pattern recognition, contextual reasoning, and real-world understanding of patient and clinician workflows—skills that translate directly into product leadership and operational decision-making.
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   3. Biases clinicians still face—and how to overcome them
      
      • Despite clear advantages, clinicians entering tech and executive roles often encounter assumptions about “staying in their lane.” Rebecca shares candid experiences and strategies for navigating these barriers while building credibility across Product, Commercial, and Operations.
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   4. Insiders + outsiders: the blueprint for high-performing health tech teams
      
      • Rebecca and Reena challenge the siloed thinking that pits “business” against “clinical.” The strongest teams intentionally combine:
        
        1. Clinician insiders (frontline expertise, clinical quality, patient context)
        2. Operator + technologist outsiders (scale, distribution, systems architecture). This is how innovation becomes both clinically sound and commercially viable.
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   5. Scrub Capital’s founding thesis: clinician-led investing accelerates better companies
      
      • Rebecca breaks down Scrub Capital’s unique model: a community of 900+ clinicians, founders, and operators who contribute insight across diligence and portfolio support. The thesis: healthcare companies are stronger when built and evaluated by people with true clinical and operating experience.
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   6. Scope Collaborative: developing the next generation of clinician–operators and Clinician–investors
      
      • Formerly “Clinicians in VC,” this community helps clinicians gain literacy in business, product, early-stage investing, and interdisciplinary leadership
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   7. “Top of license” is evolving, and clinicians must help build the future
      
      • Rebecca argues that in an era of AI-enabled care delivery, tech-enabled operations, and hybrid care models, practicing at the top of your license includes:
        
        1. Understanding product and business mechanics
        2. Operating effectively across disciplines
        3. Participating in early-stage innovation and governance
        4. Designing systems where human + machine care enhances, not erodes, clinical integrity
           
   8. A call to action for clinician leaders
      
      • There has never been more need—or more opportunity—for clinicians to shape how technology and care delivery evolve.

 Perfect for: Clinicians | Product Leaders | Operators | Founders | Investors | Health Tech Builders | Healthcare Executives

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🎧 Listen to the full conversation: 

Spotify: https://bit.ly/48wcXeB 

Apple: https://bit.ly/44GvYbZ 

YouTube: https://bit.ly/4rOSs48 

📍 On Oxeon’s Leadership Rounds podcast

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