Dr Sam Prince’s interest in medicine was partly inspired by his mother.
Sam’s mother grew up in Sri Lanka in a poor rural village with few opportunities for young people. Her brother and sister died because the family could not afford health care. However, Sam’s mother managed to overcome poverty and other limitations—she was the only child to pass the U10 and went on to become the first person in her village to attend university. She eventually gained five degrees and a PhD and was an Australian Bureau of Statistics economist.
“She is the cycle breaker. I’ve been really obsessed with people who break cycles. It's not too hard to find an accountant who has a father who is an accountant who has a mother who is an accountant. These cycles continue; they are good cycles to perpetuate. I am really fascinated with people who are able to break bad cycles,” says Sam.
He adds that his mother’s ability to set her sights on doing something different and breaking that bad cycle has inspired him (and his sister) to do more with his life.
“I idolise her. She’s a very easy person to look up to; calm, intelligent, kind, and a lovely, lovely spirit. So that's why she's been our rock.”
While studying medicine, Sam worked at a Mexican restaurant to help pay the bills. It was here that an idea to do something more struck him. At just 21, he opened his Mexican restaurant called Zambreros. It quickly grew into a franchise of almost 200 restaurants with a plate-for-plate initiative that has seen more than 14 million meals donated to people in developing countries. He says skillsets used in business and medicine have a surprising number of similarities:
“It is a great place to learn more about skills taught in medical schools, like how to lead a team in the right direction, and people management, strategies… all these things you learn in entrepreneurship […] I think that doctors are uniquely skilled; I think they are almost selected for those kinds of entrepreneurial skills. My definition of entrepreneurship is having an idea, breathing life into it, making it real, and having it adopted by others. And I think a systematic way of approaching problems is well suited for that, so I have to indulge here.”
When Dr Sam Prince was 32, he developed a cough and became very sick. Chest X-rays revealed a mass in his lungs, which was, at first, thought to be cancer. He was eventually diagnosed with sarcoidosis, “It was a soul-searching period,” says Sam, “it was also a place where I got up close and personal in the medical system.”
His experience as a patient led him to believe that the whole world needed to be changed and that the healthcare industry needed a new way of melding medicine and technology to create a better system for patients and doctors. It inspired Sam to found Next Practice – a combination of technology (including an app) and clinics that strip away what doctors don’t like about the traditional system. These things often prevent them from practising medicine, like back-breaking paperwork and restricted patient time.
“[T]he thing that inspired us was, we can just obsess about making the best general practice experience on planet earth, not only for patients but also noting that doctors are exquisitely skilled at advocating for patients.”
Next Practice aims to use technology to assist rather than replace doctors. It brings together innovative technology and doctors who are passionate about healthcare. It’s healthcare “re-imagined.”
“I am not interested in best practices anymore. I'm interested in the next practice and what happens next because I think we can elevate ourselves to something beyond that.”
Sam is positive about the future of healthcare and is passionate about ensuring the industry is driven towards a forward-thinking future. He illustrates this importance with an anecdote from his time in Sri Lanka, where he often does charity work. He was thrilled to be able to give a scholarship to a little girl who’d passed her U10 and had grown up in a village similar to the town where his mother had grown up. Sam and his mother asked the girl:
“We are greatly honoured to be able to offer you a scholarship in school. You can do whatever you want… so what do you want to do?”
The girl replied that she wanted to be a bus ticket collector, and at first, they were surprised that this was what the girl saw as the pinnacle, the thing she wanted to do most.
“But if you stood from her vantage point and looked out from the slum at all you could see, there was this bus that would pass by every once in a while. The bus driver was a man, so she thought she could not do that, but everyone on that bus wore suits (and things like that), and there was this young girl in this beautiful white dress who collected bus tickets. And so [the little girl] thought: ‘That is the absolute pinnacle of what I can attain’.”
Sam says that although aspiring to pinnacles beyond what you can see is difficult, it’s important to think bigger and better for the future of the medical industry.
