Entertaining, But With A Mission
I’m Dr. Zubin Damania, MD, an internist and the founder of Turntable Health, an innovative healthcare startup that was part of an ambitious urban revitalization movement in Las Vegas. During a 10-year hospitalist career at Stanford, I somehow won clinical teaching awards while simultaneously maintaining a shadow career performing stand-up comedy for medical audiences worldwide. My videos and live Facebook shows, created under the pseudonym ZDoggMD, have gone epidemically viral with nearly a billion views on YouTube and Facebook, educating patients and providers while mercilessly satirizing our dysfunctional healthcare system. In Las Vegas, we made the leap from satire to actionable change by implementing an innovative model of healthcare delivery that promotes wellness at both the individual and community level. Turntable Health, a membership model team-based primary care ecosystem, was a ground-up effort to get healthcare right by restoring the primacy of the human relationship, a concept we call “Health 3.0“. My mission is to teach others what we’ve learned, while inspiring both personal and system-level transformation through storytelling, humor, and music. Dr. Robbie Pearl, former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group, had this to say. The Medical Group Management Association said, “His rap songs made them laugh, but his message brought his audience to their feet.” Tampa General Hospital wrote a great piece on my performance there, with CEO John Couris stating: “ZDogg’s message about adjusting and changing the way care is delivered makes all the sense in the world,” he said. “A lot of our technology today does sit between the patient and the doctor, where we need to work on being more patient-centric and more caregiver-centric. The answer is that it can be more of a collaboration with administrators, doctors, and nurses. Together we are stronger and can be more effective advocates for our patients.” I’ve been featured as one of the top 100 graduation speeches of all time by NPR, and have been profiled in:
99% of my bookings are directly through me, so avoid speakers’ bureau fees of up to 30% by booking direct!
I tailor my performance and message to your audience. Virtual talks in the age of COVID-19 are my specialty, using the high quality studio production I also use on my nightly shows. Topics include medical culture and burnout in healthcare, finding a voice in a dysfunctional system, technological innovation in medicine, team-based collaborative care models (Health 3.0), and the innovative use of social media in healthcare. These concepts are fleshed out in an arc that tells my personal story: how I fell in love with my father’s brand of medicine (Health 1.0), found myself trapped in the current assembly-line model of medicine (Health 2.0), and ultimately reconnected with my passion and purpose in working with countless others to build the foundations of re-personalized medicine — Health 3.0. I use humor, storytelling, video, and live musical performances in my keynotes to educate, inspire, and entertain. People REALLY love the experience, or so they tell me 😉
As a practicing physician on the front lines, I’ve been where many of your healthcare audience members have been. #StreetCred My talks are funny, educational, engaging, entertaining, and emotionally inspiring with a deep message. See endorsement quotes below (several organizations have had me speak more than 2 years in a row)! I’ll hop on a call with you and customize a performance for your audience. Try THAT with Dr. Gawande (hahaha, just kidding Atul, please don’t have me killed). I LOVE performing, and I’ve had a ton of experience as a healthcare speaker, doing medical keynotes and musical performances and concerts for dozens of prominent groups around the world. My talks are CME and CE certified. You deal with me directly as the healthcare speaker, not with a bureau or an agent (unless you are already using one, in which case: my condolences…but I’ll still work with them seamlessly). I am happy to make a short video for your conference to help promote it; I have a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram presence with over 3 million engaged followers. *Note: Many folks wonder if I’m TOO edgy or “clown-ish” for their austere gathering. Get on a call with me and find out what I’m really like…you’ll be surprised. I’m deeply mission-driven and care a lot about the message and the movement we’re trying to spread.
Contact me using the booking form on this page to get an exact quote for your organization (or email me directly here). I’m more affordable than super famous speakers with agents and prescription drug addictions, but I’m a lot more costly than Crabby The Healthcare Clown. If you are an organization or group with a very low budget, it probably can’t work unless you can round up a corporate sponsor (which has worked well in the past). Or if you promise me a SWIMMING POOL full of green M&M’s…along with an insulin pump. *NOTE: I’m kidding about the green M&Ms…PLEASE NO MORE GREEN M&Ms 😉 !! I’m based near San Francisco, so if your conference is here I’m zero travel expenses and somewhat less costly, and virtual talks are less expensive than in person (but WAY awesome too). What do I do with your organization’s hard-earned money? I use it to fund the production of my daily Facebook live show/podcast, The ZDoggMD Show.
BOOK DIRECT! Don’t go through a speakers’ bureau unless you enjoy paying 30% more to deal with a middleman you don’t need. 99% of my bookings are direct through me.
Use the form at the bottom of this webpage or email me here.