Russell Faust, PhD, MD, FAAP, ABIHM

Physician Executive, Techie, Social Media Expert and Blogger

January 05, 2012 21:32 Comments

Introducing this week’s Scrubs & Suits Featured Member, Russell Faust,PhD.

Dr. Faust is a physician executive who interprets technology and social media to a variety of audiences through keynotes, blog posts, articles, retreats and workshops. He has been a medical school professor, an endowed chairman, chief medical officer and president and EO of several organizations.

A Rock-Climbing Accident Leads to Career Inspiration

Russell Faust said his background in healthcare began during his rock-climbing career. One day while he was visiting a rock wall, a fellow climber fell, and no one at the site was able to help.

“That inspired me to become BLS trained, then ALS trained,” Faust said. “I then began teaching BLS and ALS for the American Heart Association, and trained as an EMT (emergency med tech) for a local ambulance corps where I was going to college (University of Rochester). “

He said his experience in a pre-med program led him to believe that med students were “pretty cut-throat,” which prompted him to choose to go to graduate school in molecular biology at the University of Washington.

“There was great climbing, skiing and sailing,” Faust said. “And, incidentally, great molecular biologists!”

He said that while he was earning his PhD, he realized that he still wanted to heal people, so he began applying to medical schools.

“The University of Minnesota was the only place that interviewed me that did not laugh when I told them that I wanted to continue my research during medical school,” Faust said. “They gave me an appointment in the Department of Biochemistry (and Pathology) and a lab.”

He said that he remained at UM throughout his residency in otolaryngology (head and neck surgery), and later did his fellowship training in pediatric otolaryngology at Johns Hopkins.

“During all of that and beyond, I have been a tech geek, convinced that technology can help us improve science and medicine,” Faust said. “From teaching courses on web page programming, to using your personal digital camera for endoscopic video in the operating room, to how to use electronic medical records, to helping train surgeons in the use of the surgical robot, I continue to be a tech geek.”

Faust holds the honor of having published the first text on robotic surgery, Robotics in Surgery: History, Present and Future Applications, in 2007.

Finding Balance and Rediscovering His Family

Faust said that until just three years ago, he was working 80 or more hours each week.

“(I was) teaching resident surgeons, working in the lab doing research, and performing over 1,000 surgeries per year,” he said. “My wife and I were commuting between Ohio and Michigan.”

When the couple’s third child was born, Faust said he finally realized that he wasn’t spending time with his kids.

“I was an absent parent, and my wife was essentially a single parent,” he said. “In addition, apparently all those years of climbing caught up with my back, which was making it difficult to put in those hours (we too soon old, too late smart).”

He said that’s when he resigned his position in an academic institution and decided to work part-time in private practice, community hospital and collaborating with his lab and clinical team back in Ohio. He said his team continues to publish medical literature articles.

These days, he says his life is much more balanced.

A Blog Leads to Big Things

Faust said that thanks to his tech background and experience with the internet, web development and social media, he developed a medical education blog for his patients and their families.

“Boogordoctor.com –that's what my patients call me, and it seemed appropriate,” he said. “The success of that blog (over 10,000 visitors per month now) resulted in me being asked to consult for a variety of practices and hospitals. “

He said that the consulting work recently evolved into an agency called Annica Media, where he now works with a team of marketing and creative design people who help others in healthcare to use technology to better connect with their communities.

“Whether that community is their patients, or their referring physicians, or their employed physicians, or their nurses, Anicca Media helps them to get connected in the digital world,” Faust said. “It has been great fun and very gratifying to use those skills to help others.”

As his expertise has become recognized, Faust has become a popular speaker and workshop teacher.

“These activities resulted in my recent appointment as adjunct faculty at the Oakland University School of Business MBA Program in Healthcare,” he said. “Cool!”

Faust serves as adviser or chief medical officer on a number of tech and bio start-ups, and he’s got many published articles in a variety of mediums, including several online.

Find Russell Faust, PhD, MD, FAAP, ABIHM Online