A path toward medical school felt like the right road to follow for Adam Wollowick, who ended up not only going into orthopedics but spine surgery. Turns out, although he was good at it, he didn't really care for practicing medicine. Once he understood what he should be doing, he realized he hadn't really been making his own choices along the way. Find out how listening to your own "shoulds" can have healthier outcomes.
Guest Adam Wollowick figured he would go to medical school but also brought a love of art history with him from high school. He took on an art history major along with his pre-med classes and bounced from fraternity basement to library, living the “work hard, play hard” ethos. With a father in orthopedics, he followed in that practice when he realized he liked working with his hands and selected spine surgery because it was the hardest thing he could try. At every turn, though, he wondered if medicine was really for him. Colleagues kept telling him just had to get through med school or residency or internship and it would be fine. But it never did feel fine. Despite being good at his job, he was miserable.
When he noticed that his hospital system was acquiring other orthopedic practices and no one was running it as a business, he thought he could do it. He asked his hospital to pay for an MBA. And a few weeks in he realized this is what he really wanted to do. The hospital started getting cold feet and didn’t want him to leave surgery. So he took a risk and quit without a new job. Ultimately, he landed with a company doing mergers and acquisitions in the spine space and felt he’d found more meaning and fulfillment.
In this episode, find out from Adam how listening to your own “should” can have healthier outcomes than someone else’s…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Adam Wollowick is Senior Director of Business Development at Stryker Spine, working in mergers and acquisitions in the spine and orthopedic space. He is also a mentor at NYU's Endless Frontier Labs, an accelerator for early-stage science and technology-based startups. Previously, he worked as a spine surgeon at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY and held the title of Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine also in the Bronx.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Adam Wollowick: You’ve got to take risks like I did, which was quitting my job as a spine surgeon. People were like, who quits their job as a spine surgeon? Like, you know, are you crazy? And was like, no, I was crazy to become a spine surgeon. It wasn't crazy to quit it. And so, you know, taking risks to find happiness and meaning, fulfillment is what it's all about.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: A path toward medical school felt like the right road to follow for Adam Wollowick, who ended up not only going into orthopedics, but spine surgery. Turns out, although he was good at it, he didn't really care for practicing medicine. Once he understood what he should be doing, he realized he hadn't been making his own choices along the way. Find out how listening to your own shoulds can have healthier outcomes on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today, I'm here with Adam Wollowick and we're going to talk about who gets to decide what we should do. And it's just great to have you here.
AW: Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, Leslie. I'm excited.
LJR: So I start this conversation with two questions, Adam, and they are, when we were in college. Who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would be?
AW: So I admit I've listened to a number of these podcast sessions. I've been giving it a fair amount of thought and I've come up with all kinds of interesting answers, including that I was an idiot when I was there, cause I think that probably sums up a lot of my behavior, but I think more than anything, I was probably kind of a nerd.
You know, I came from a small, fancy uppity private school in south Florida to Dartmouth, very competitive environment. I was a hard worker. I had to be; everyone was probably a lot smarter than I was, and I just, I had to work. I had to grind and that's what I took to Dartmouth. I was struck by how smart everyone else was at Dartmouth.
And I knew I had to work hard if I was to going to do well. And so I spent a lot of time in the library in the 1902 room, in Sanborn House. Sunday mornings, I'd go to the bagel basement, get my OJ and my bagels. And I'd be there before the doors opened. Even after being up until two o'clock in the morning or whatever, in a fraternity basement.
And I worked and that's what I did. I don't, you know, I wanted to fit in. And that's why I liked Dartmouth so much. And so I thought it was a place where you could, you know the old adage “work hard, play hard.” And I think that's what I did there. When I left, I honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew that I was going to go to medical school.
So I was off to the Bronx in New York to go to Albert Einstein for medical school. So I knew that, but the rest of it, I really, I had no idea. I grew up, as I said, in south Florida then went all the way up to New Hampshire and then somehow decided that, that I would spend four years in New York City in the Bronx, which was crazy.
And I say decided very loosely because I didn't have a lot of options. I think I got into one medical school after having a few interviews and applying to a number, but I was surprised, on the one hand, by how hard it was to get into med school from Dartmouth and with my background. But at the same time, I admit my science grades were probably not the strongest.
LJR: Well, that's what…I was surprised that you actually said, “I knew I was going to med school.” I thought that was going to be a later choice because your major belies that.
AW: True. So I was an art history major. I was very fortunate, as I said, in this school that I went to in Florida, that they offered AP art history. And this was a class that was kind of the class to take your senior year. It was 10 or 12 students only. It was a small school, but this was really small class and everybody got a five on the AP exam and the teacher was amazing and all this kind of stuff. And I always liked art and museums. I traveled with my family to different places. They always took us to museums. And then I got to Dartmouth and, you know, I actually didn't intend to be an art history major. I kind of knew I was gonna try to go to med school. My father was a doctor and I sort of default figured I'd follow in his footsteps as well. Why I thought that I have no idea, but that was the thought.
But this art history thing always stuck in my head from high school. And since pre-med, wasn't officially a major, I said, okay, well I could take these classes, but I could do something cool. And I had thought about it for awhile. And then I ended up meeting with the chairman at the time of the department and I said, well, you know, I don't want to take this, I already did that. I want to do this. And she's like, oh, why don't you take my art history 46 class. This was freshman fall. And we'll keep an eye on you. You'll be okay. And I was like, okay, but why not? And so Joy Kenseth roped me in to her Northern Baroque class. And I stayed the course and loved every minute of it.
I thought for about 20 minutes about getting a PhD in art history and becoming a professor and that sort of life, which probably would've loved it…still probably wouldn't mind to do. I love school. I went back to school not long ago. But I thought that probably wasn't the most sustainable lifestyle for, I guess what I was thinking life would be, you know, coming from Boca, Raton, Florida of all places saying, well, how am I going to keep up with what I know or what I've known my whole life? And art history professor probably wasn't it. So med school seems like a better choice at least. Right?
LJR: Right. Well, I just, I'm glad that you could juggle both of those things at Dartmouth, because I always felt like I didn't get to know many ultimate doctors because they were always like very weighted down by science classes and that sort of thing, which is not my bailiwick, but you at least, you know, you've got that love part and the direction part.
So there you were in New York during the discernment period of figuring out what kind of doctor you were going to be. What was that like for you? And what was the moment of putting you in your direction?
AWW: So first of all, the, yeah, my direction was sort of my direction for a while and it's, I'm sure we'll talk about, I've got a new direction. But you know, med school was a struggle for me, not necessarily academically, but just conceptually, I guess, or theoretically, I guess. I couldn't find anything that I really loved. You know, we took classes in cardiac physiology or renal and, you know, lungs and this and that. None of it, like jumped off the page as being like, wow, like I needed to devote my life to this. And so I kind of struggled with the whole thing from the beginning. I figured out once I got into the clinical setting with rotations and all of that, where you're seeing patients and in the hospitals that I liked surgery, I liked using my hands. And so I pushed in that direction and ultimately ended up with in orthopedic surgery which was what my father did. People joke around. They say, there's only two ways to go into orthopedics. One is you have to be a Division One athlete or professional athlete. The other one is to have a father or mother who is an orthopedic surgeon. And I certainly didn't fall into the first bucket, but I fell into the second one. And so, you know, I decided to go into orthopedics, but it was a struggle because I just, I didn't, I guess I didn't love it. But I kept getting told by people along the way that you got to get out of med school. And once you get into residency and you're really practicing medicine and all of that stuff, you'll see how great it is. And so I said, okay, you know, because I was, frankly, at some points I was ready to leave med school. I was like, I don't love this. They said, press on, get your degree and then do your internship and get your license. And that way you'll always have it. And so I just, I persevered and you know, it's also contemplating your opening question and I was also thinking, you know, a lot of who I was, I think at Dartmouth and in those years beyond was doing what other people wanted me to do, I think, or what I thought they wanted me to do and trying to make other people happy rather than really thinking about what would make me happy.
And so I think that creates a lot of blind spots for people. It certainly did for me, especially when you've got, you know, strong parents who are, have these expectations and kind of create these narratives for you, that you feel like you have to fit into.
LJR: Yeah. There's a little foreshadowing here, and like taking a bit of time to know that you love something. You've done that a couple of times in your life of figuring that out. But your practice…get through med school and all of the attendant things that come with that and you practice and you're practicing spine surgery. That sounds not just orthopedic. Like that's pretty specific.
AW: Yeah. So once I got into my orthopedic residency, you know, admittedly, I think I struggled emotionally with that as well. And it was, again, one of those things where people were telling me, you got to get through your internship. You gotta get through second year and then you get through your residency and into fellowship and you're going to love it and blah, blah, blah. But I think along those lines of wanting to meet others’ expectations and trying to I don't know, be a little bit different maybe I chose spine. And I think I chose it mainly because it was the hardest area of orthopedics, you know, is the area that nobody wanted to go into, is the area with the longest, most complicated surgeries, with the most difficult patients whose outcomes are unpredictable. And I wanted to solve that. I wanted, there was a black box there that I wanted to fix and thought I could. And so I did a couple of fellowships in spine surgery after I finished my orthopedic training and then practiced back in the Bronx where I went to med school, for seven years. And I guess my struggles with being in medicine or being a physician continued.
You know, I love doing surgery and using my hands and fixing these problems. The technical aspects though, really stressful, you know, you're millimeters away from nerves and spinal cords and whatnot, you know. That took a toll, but I liked the doing and I especially like doing it when I could collaborate with my colleagues, when there were two of us in the room. I mean, we always had residents in med school and med students and fellows. But you know, when I had a partner or a colleague from another department with me in a two fully-credentialed, fully trained surgeons, working together on a complex case…Those were my favorite moments, that collaborative experience.
It's probably also because I felt safer with someone else there. I wasn't on my own. Surgery is incredibly lonely, I think. Despite what people may say, you're…It’s you and the patient and you're the pilot of the plane, right?
LJR: They’re not saying much at that point.
AW: Yeah. You know, anything that goes on as it is your responsibility. And so it can be very lonely. So I like that aspect, but honestly, I didn't love all the patient care. I mean, I tried really hard to do the right thing and I took good care of my patients. I was available all the time and I saw them on weekends and holidays, but I didn't, I wasn't getting joy from, from the care. People in medicine say, you know, you should live it and breathe it and love taking care of people. And I honestly didn't. And at some point I started to say to myself, you know, more than anything that I felt my patients deserve better—despite what I was putting forth to them and giving it my all—that they deserve someone who loves taking care of them. And I didn't. So I started searching for ways that I could continue what I had just spent like, you know, 15 years training for and doing between med school and a year of research in a laboratory and fellowships and all of that stuff. And so I got into teaching and training and I helped run our residency program and design curricula for these trainees and med students and did research and published papers and won awards for research. And I kept trying to figure out how can I stay in medicine? Really focusing on the medical aspects of it. And that says nothing for the frustrations of practicing and in the modern world where you've got to get insurance approvals and you've got paperwork and all this stuff that it's not really direct patient care, which is another frustration I think of the healthcare system today.
But ultimately, what I recognize is our group was expanding rapidly. We were, my hospital system was acquiring hospitals left and right. And we were ultimately responsible for this big group of orthopedic practices around the region financially. And from a process standpoint and a day-to-day management standpoint. And I realized that nobody was running this business. This was a massive tens of millions of dollars business with 50, 60 orthopedic surgeons and no one was paying attention. There was no standardization, no efficiencies, no economies of scale. And so I went to my chairman. I said, we've got to fix this. We're leaving millions of dollars on the table. We're not providing good care…that the physicians are not happy. And he's like, what do you want to do? Well, we need someone who can run this business first and foremost, who can then start to work with others to put this in place. I said, I want to do that, but I want to go get an MBA before, and I want you guys to pay for it. It took a lot of convincing up to the highest levels of administration, but I convinced them.
And so I went off to business school, you know in 2012, in an executive program where I was going two weekends a month to get my MBA. And I loved it. It didn't take long before when I was in business school, you know, really a matter of weeks before the light bulb went off and said, this is what I should be doing myself.
And it was, it was cool because it was a healthcare focused MBA. So I was getting all the basics, the economics, the stats, the corporate finance, but also with a thought towards healthcare. And I loved it and I got bit by that business bug. And I was excited. I was excited to go back to where I was, where I grew up as a med student and then a resident and then an attending physician to help them fix this, what I perceived to be a problem. And so I started having dialogue with my chairman now that I'm, you know, at this point, I'm, you know, we'll call it halfway through my MBA about like, okay, what's this really going to look like? And let's start planning and scaling back. And they started hemming and hawing and saying, well, you know, we think you should probably just stay in the practice of medicine and you can bring in more money that way. And you know, even if we let you do this, we couldn't pay you appropriately. You know, you’d take a big setback and it's like, well, this isn't what we talked about, guys. You know, you're the ones that ponied up for this very expensive executive MBA.
And I said, well, I got to really think about this. And I made a decision at some point that if they weren't going to let me do what I want to do, I still wanted to be in business in the business world. And so I quit my job without having another job. I guess I had some savings to get me through six or nine months, relatively close to the lifestyle that I had been leading. I started to network and interview and cold call and figure it out. And ultimately I was able to connect with some people at a company that I had worked with as a consultant. I had taught some courses for them, did some research, a very large corporation with multiple business lines, and they had a need for someone to do mergers and acquisitions for them focused in the spine space. It was a perfect fit.
LJR: So there are so many things out them in what you were just saying. I love...I'm sure you did not notice your word choice, but when you were talking about your MBA and how really just a few weeks in you said, “this is what I should be doing” and you previously talked about all of these other people's shoulds for you. So I thought it was so telling that your eyes lit up when you said it, you could like, this was what I should do. Like the real should. This is who I am. And how demoralizing really for you to go back and have them say no, no, no. What you really should be doing….So how did that feel when you were like, no, no, no. I finally I figured it out. And who are you to tell me where I'm supposed to go? Like, was it that feeling of, okay, well, I really just have to go cause now I know. [AW: That's right.] What does that really feel like?
AW: Well, I, first of all, I appreciate you picking up on that. I think it's very true. You know, I felt like going to business school was something. I was doing for myself more than anyone else. My father had died a couple of years before, and that was a huge, huge impact on my life. You know, I was having some personal troubles at the time that ended up ending up in a divorce. And so I was, I said, I'm going to do this for me. And, you know, when I decided to quit my job, it was incredibly liberating.
It was scary as well. I mean, you know, basically just saying I'm leaving every, basically everything I know behind to go take this huge risk and jump into corporate America at, you know, 40, 41 years old, you know? And it was interesting because when I finally made this decision and I told everyone, and then I wound down in my practice and we had this goodbye party, I ended up having dinner a couple of weeks later with the guy who I was running the residency with and who was my mentor when I was a resident. And. It was, it was interesting because he said, you know, we always thought that spine surgery was a really bad choice for you. And we were, we weren't sure why you want it to do that. We didn't think it was a good fit. And I turned to him and I said, why didn't you tell me this? Like you are my mentor. You were my teacher. You were supposed to be the one to say, dude, you're going to make a mistake by doing this. You should go this way or that way. So, no, I don't look, I don't blame him or anyone else, right? Like you make your own bed in life, right? And I knew what I was doing when I wanted to go into spine, like I said, with the challenges and stuff. But I think if you're in a situation where you're, you have someone under you or someone you're mentoring where you can give them feedback and you know, maybe it's not what they want to hear, but be direct with them. Be honest, you know? ‘Cause people are making decisions about their lives based on what you potentially are telling them. And I've got young people under me today and just had someone leave my group to do something else. I've got one who's contemplating going to a better position, but elsewhere. And it's like, you know, I'm in these situations myself all the time, but you know, I think it's so critical to give people the honest feedback so that they can then process and make their own decisions. And I felt like it took me years and years to get to that place where I could actually make that decision for myself. And so, you know, I did, and you know, I haven't looked back since. It's been seven and a half years almost since I left practice and started with the company that with today. I've been with the same company, all those seven and a half years doing mergers and acquisitions. I'm in the orthopedic neuro spine space. And I love it. I work with great people and I'm challenged every day. I'm learning new things all the time and it's, I have no regrets at this point.
LJR: Yeah, no, it doesn't sound like it. And we get to where we are because of the life experiences that we've had. And so I'm sure experience as a surgeon definitely helps you daily in the kinds of conversations that you're having with the practices that you're dealing with. But is there an element of the looking back at the young Adam that wishes that you could have honed this idea of being involved in medicine without going through that path and landing kind of in a business sense of where you are, because I'm sure you actually deal with people who don't have that background. What do you think about that?
AW: It's a great point. A great question. I think about it all the time, to be honest. I, you know, again, it goes back to that light bulb moment of this is what I think I should be doing or should have been doing the last few years. I started getting with an incubator for startup technology companies in healthcare at NYU Stern business school called Endless Frontier Labs that we see 40 to 50 companies a year and doing really amazing things in cancer, medical device, genetics, infection, all these things. And so it's opened my eyes to entrepreneurship, you know, kind of the venture side of the business world, as opposed to big corporations like I deal with most of the time and it's exciting. These people are changing the world or that they're certainly trying to, and it's something that I think I would have liked to be a part of. And, you know, I kind of scratch that itch a little bit by what I'm doing today, but there's definitely a part of me that wants to work with a small company and build something, I guess you'd say I, you know, I built a practice when I went into medicine, I built a research program with a couple of close colleagues, which didn't exist. I built a residency program. So, you know, in some ways I'm a builder and I'd like to build a company. And I guess I'm constantly looking around for the right technology or the right thing to latch onto to see where I can lend my experience both on the healthcare side and now on the business side to help that company thrive and bring something cool and meaningful to the market.
I mean, I think when I think about what I do today, I mean, I'm not in direct patient care. I, you know, I do occasionally get to go into surgery to watch a colleague or customer use a technology that we're interested in, interested in acquiring or licensing. And so I guess, kind of feel that I get to go into labs and play with the new products that our team is developing. So I get some of that medical contact. So, you know, it's yeah.
LJR: So it sounds like you needed all of those experiences to kind of give you all those perspectives and it's a wide set of perspectives. So it sounds like you have lots of different potential pathways and you just need to figure out what you should do.
AW: It took a lot of tough years, both on the work front, personal front of trying to figure out who I am, who I wanted to be, the kind of person I wanted to be. I mean, one of the struggles I had with medicine is that I would go to work in the morning and I'd be happy as a clam. I, you know, whatever I did the night before, or, you know, didn't do or whatever, I just, I was generally, I think, pretty happy and it didn't take long, you know, an hour or two into seeing patients or whatnot that I was miserable. I was crabby. I was not someone who was fun to be around. And I'm generally, I think, a pretty fun social person. I like people, I like talking to people, but I was miserable. And I was miserable to others, including those closest to me. And that really sucked.
And so, you know, now I think I'd like to think I'm happier. I'm a better person. I think I'm a nicer person. I have my moments, you know, I think sometimes that surgeon comes out, which is hard in corporate America where, you know, I get a little too direct and give orders, so to speak, you know, like you would do in the OR. Do this, we need this now kind of thing. And I've really come a long way in my seven years. But I think all in all, I'm so much happier now. And I think. You got to take risks like I did, which was quitting my job as a surgeon. And people are like, who quits the job as a spine surgeon? Like, Are you crazy? And so like, no, I was crazy to become a spine surgeon. For me, not for all spine surgeons. It's just, it was crazy for me to do that. When I look back on it, it wasn't crazy to quit it. And so, you know, taking risks to find happiness and meaning, fulfillment is what it's all about. And I think that's what it was for me. And like I said, I've not looked back with any regrets whatsoever. I should have done it sooner.
LJR: How long did it take you? To figure out that you went to work happy and an hour in weren’t and there was causality there.
AW: Too, too long. Probably a good couple of years. You know, it's interesting again, when I was struggling with the practice, you know, a lot of me thought, well, it's because I'm in the Bronx, right? I've got these difficult patients who don't speak English. I got to get on the phone with a phone translator. Cause that's the policy. So it's proper medical terminology to their proper language. And you know, I'm seeing so many patients a day and you know, frankly not making that much money doing this relative to my friends who were in private practice. So I said, let me change locations. And I really thought long and hard about moving either to Miami, to a job down there, or to one in Chicago that I looked at. And I realized that geography wasn't it. It wasn't if it was a fancy practice or an inner city practices, I just didn't love medicine. And I started, I think, frankly, it was when my marriage started to fall apart that I realized that, you know, I was a bad person.
LJR: It was just a bad fit.
AW: You know, in some ways, yeah, it was a bad fit, you know, you're right. I hopefully I'm not a bad person, but I certainly was acting like it. At least, again, to people that I think were close to me, friends and family. And so something had to change and it took that whole experience with the MBA for me to realize that a change was really needed and to actually go and take the risk to make that change.
LJR: Well, I’m glad you did.
AW: Me, too.
LJR: So Adam, I think that’s a really good lesson for many of us who are still trying to figure out how to listen to those “shoulds” in our head and take some risks and so thank you so much for letting us in on this part of the journey and I hope you have many more “shoulds” of your own to come. Thanks so much.
AW: My pleasure. Thank you. This has been really fun. Glad to be a part of.
LJR: That was Adam Wollowick, senior director of business development at Stryker Spine, working in mergers and acquisitions in the spine and orthopedic space. He's also a mentor at NYU’s Endless Frontier Labs, an accelerator for early stage science- and technology-based startups. Previously, he worked as a spine surgeon at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, and held the title of assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also in the Bronx. There's a lot to learn from Adam’s story of whom to listen to when you're making life decisions. We're glad you're listening to us each week. Please continue to make that decision or make it easier and subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts. That way, each week, when we publish another episode, you'll get it automatically and be able to join me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, for the next episodes of Roads Taken.