Stepping down as Executive Director of High Impact Medicine

Summary

• After >2 years at Hi-Med, I have decided to step down from my role.
• This allows me to complete my medical residency for long-term career resilience, whilst still allowing part-time flexibility for direct charity work. It also allows me to donate more again.
• Hi-Med is now looking to appoint its next Executive Director; the application deadline is 26 January 2025.
• I will join Hi-Med’s governing board once we have appointed the next Executive Director.

Before the role

When I graduated from medical school in 2017, I had already started to give 10% of my income to effective charities, but I was unsure as to how I could best use my medical degree to make this world a better place. After dipping my toe into nonprofit fundraising (with Doctors Without Borders) and working in a medical career-related start-up to upskill, a talk given by Dixon Chibanda at EAG London 2018 deeply inspired me. I formed a rough plan to later found an organisation that would teach Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-specific psychotherapeutic techniques to lay people to make evidence-based treatment of PTSD scalable. I started my medical residency in psychosomatic medicine in 2019, working for a specialised clinic for PTSD treatment until 2021, then rotated to child and adolescent psychiatry for a year and was half a year into the continuation of my specialisation training at a third hospital, when Akhil Bansal, whom I met at a recent EAG in London, reached out and encouraged me to apply for the ED position at Hi-Med - an organisation that I knew through my participation in their introductory fellowship (an academic paper about the outcomes of this first cohort can be found here). I seized the opportunity, applied, was offered the position, and started working full-time in November 2022. 

During the role

I feel truly privileged to have had the opportunity to lead High Impact Medicine for the past two years. My learning curve was steep - there were so many new things to learn, but I’ve had incredible mentors and colleagues to guide me, most notably @Akhil and Abe (the co-founders of Hi-Med), @SarahPomeranz (CEO of Consultants for Impact), Adam Tury (who supported me as a wonderful coach), @Clare_Diane  (who teamed up with me to measure Hi-Med’s impact and refine our theory of change; Hi-Med wouldn't be where it is without her), @erikjentzen (providing constructive criticism and tirelessly supporting Hi-Med) and Max Schons (reviewing funding applications on short notice). I also want to give special thanks to Will Bradshaw, who led our EA university group in Cologne when I was a student and, during a check-in call with me in 2022, challenged and encouraged me to level up the positive impact of my career; and also to @lukasj10🔸, who showed me how incredibly warm the working culture can be at a small impact-driven charity (I briefly volunteered for the CE-incubated charity he co-founded before starting at Hi-Med). There are so many more wonderful people that I’ve had the pleasure to meet in and outside of Hi-Med, who have enriched my journey and from whom I’ve learned so much. To only name a few: Rachit Shah (one of Hi-Med’s kindest and most tirelessly working volunteers), Vyshnavi Desiraju (teaching me pitching techniques and inspiring me with her stamina and humour), @Louisa Rasp (one of Hi-Med’s longest team members), Kujani Wanniarachchi (Hi-Med’s awesome podcast host), Abbos Jon, Claudia Reichmuth and Victoria Zawadil who took the lead in organising our three conferences and Hunter Lau (who had started Effective Altruism Medicine before joining Hi-Med’s board).
Last but not least, I want to thank Hi-Med’s funders, especially Open Philanthropy, without whose grant recommendations most of Hi-Med's positive impact would not have been possible.  

I am proud of what Hi-Med’s team has accomplished since I started in my role in November 2022. So many of our community members have sent us touching and inspiring case studies (our impact-to-date document is over 100 pages long!) of how their interaction with Hi-Med has changed the course of their careers, and several people have referred to our organisation and team when taking a Giving What We Can pledge. 

I am very grateful for the time I have spent in this role and for everything I have learned from and with my wonderful colleagues. It is also my perception that working full-time at an impact-driven organisation and in the wider charity space has reinforced my values and will protect me from value drift in the future. 

My decision to step down 

After careful consideration and conversations with Hi-Med’s leadership team and governing board over the last couple of weeks, I have decided to step down from my role.

This was, by no means, an easy decision. Still, I have come to the conclusion that, for long-term career resilience, I want to complete my medical residency training (I have already done 2-3 years out of 5) while still allowing part-time flexibility for direct charity work. Working clinically will also enable me to donate more and, hopefully, also help me to inspire more people to take giving pledges again. 

Given our established programmes and Open Philanthropy’s recent grant recommendation, now seems like a good time to hand over my role.

What happens now

Hi-Med is now looking to appoint its next Executive Director. If you know someone who might be a good candidate (or are considering applying yourself), please find the job description and application form in this document. The closing date for applications is 26 January 2025. The start date is as soon as possible, but we would be prepared to extend this by up to a few months for the right candidate. Please note that we are unable to support work visa applications.

Once we have appointed the next Executive Director, I will join High Impact Medicine's governing board and continue to support Hi-Med's mission, while diversifying my aims to do good in this world.