This doctor brought her expertise to Google. Here's how she did it

Dr. Jessica Mega started her career as a cardiologist and clinical trialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospital in Boston. But in 2015, her career took a turn.

Mega moved across the country to become what was then Google X’s chief medical officer. (She is now chief medical officer at Verily, Alphabet’s life sciences arm.)

It may have seemed like a radical change at the time. But as the world’s largest technology firms, companies like Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple, deepen their investment in health care, the doctor-to-technologist career path is becoming much more popular.

I recently discovered that the top five health care skills listed on the profiles of workers at Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, Salesforce, Uber, Apple, and Lyft were health care, hospitals, health care information technology, HIPAA, and health care management. (All of those companies made LinkedIn Top Companies list in the U.S.) The number of employees with those skills jumped 22% from March 2018 to March 2019, according to LinkedIn Talent Insights.

If more health care workers and clinicians are choosing careers in technology, what do those career paths look like?

I asked Dr. Mega to share her career story, explaining why she made the leap into technology, why she continues to see patients, and how tech’s culture differs from that of hospitals.

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On what motivated her to think about a career in technology:

I started to realize that we were doing a good job of understanding what were the best practices in the four walls of a hospital and how to use the best therapies. But there was so much information and life happening outside of the four walls of the hospital. What was interesting about a group like Google X (now Verily) is we were thinking: how do you bridge all of these different information sources together?

That's why it was less about one particular tech company but more thinking about what are the tools and the new technologies that we should be bringing to people and to patients to make sure that we're improving clinical outcomes. This was the place where I felt like I can have the most impact.

How she forged her own career path (and became open to ambiguity):

When I came out and visited, in the very early days of what is now Verily, I realize that there were phenomenally talented and dedicated engineers and scientists. Having all of us at the table every single day was going to make a huge difference. And, so, that's why I felt a pull to be part of this movement.

It was a different path. There are many paths that are well-charted, and you know what one step is after another. It never felt risky to me in the sense that it always felt like the right thing to do. The potential felt enormous and being able to help shape that felt critical and really time-sensitive. But it is a different pathway than something where all the steps are laid out. Folks who really enjoy this have to be a bit more open to ambiguity.

On learning to speak tech’s language:

In clinical medicine, we talked about patients. In research, we may talk about participants. From a tech perspective, we talk about users. We spend a lot of time here talking about our mission. What are we trying to do? How are we trying to help people? Because at the end of the day whether it's a patient, whether it's a participant, whether it's a user, it comes down to the human element and helping people. And so just making sure that language doesn't get in the way of progress in your mission.

On the skills that make health care careers in tech work:

It’s really important to know your own focus and what value you most bring to a given problem. Certainly, you can have algorithms and you can have clinical-decision support, but what does it really mean to be on the front lines of care?

What I have to do at the same time is to be very open-minded to new and creative ways that technology could either augment or could change this practice. If you're confident in the domain [knowledge] that you bring and you're open-minded enough, then you'll find this work fun.

If you're going to join a team and really be the health care voice, it's important to spend time with patients and have taken care of folks within the system. That, honestly, just comes with time. There's really no fast-track to experience. That's a lesson in life in general, especially if you're working in these fields because the time horizons can be longer. You have to do things right, and you have to build the tools, and you have to test them. There’s no shortcut.

Understanding the cultural similarities between hospitals and tech:

In the hospital, for example, everyone has a voice. I remember being an intern and seeing something that was concerning a patient and bringing that up to the team. We expect the same here. Everyone needs to have a perspective and needs to have a voice.

The other thing is, in all these cases, there need to be people who can help foster decisions when decisions need to be made quickly. There's more structure in the hospital system sometimes. But I found actually similarities in terms of embracing many different perspectives and making sure at the end of the day the decisions are clear.

On keeping her cardiology practice:

That’s been really important. I really care deeply about the patients that I work with, and it's part of my identity. Then, the other thing is I think that you can really bring the best solutions to health care if you're able to spend time there. It’s a personal decision. For me, right now, this is the right choice.

Why tech hopefuls should rethink medical meetings:

If you're a doctor, you may be used to going to a certain set of meetings—I still go to those. I care deeply about them. But there are other environments where you can start to get a flavor of what's going on broadly, and you can get exposure. So going outside of your comfort zone with your meetings is a nice first step.

The interesting thing you're starting to see even in meetings that are considered more clinically focused, you're starting to see health-tech tracks. Even if that's not something that you're currently involved in, that's an incredibly easy way to go to those tracks and to see what people are talking about.

*This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

What skills do you think should health care workers have if they want a career in technology?