Clinical notes are one of the more tedious parts of doctors’ day-to-day lives—so much so that they’re often called “pajama time,” since physicians spend 2-3 hours writing them at night. In this episode, Steve Kraus sits down with Dr. Shiv Rao, co-founder and CEO of Abridge, an AI-first healthcare company that’s been in the spotlight for solving this problem. Abridge uses advanced machine learning to structure and summarize medical conversations, creating clinical documentation and structured data while reducing clinician burnout.

Shiv traces his journey from a skateboarding rebel to a cardiologist, professor, healthcare investor, and now founder of a pioneering digital health startup. He shares how his passion for scalable impact and exposure to cutting-edge research at Carnegie Mellon led him to start Abridge in 2018.

Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death in 18-45 year olds in the US, claiming more lives than car crashes and gun violence combined. After Dr. Beth Weinstock lost her son last year to what she calls “the most devastating health crisis this generation has ever seen,” she decided to do something about it. In this episode, we discuss a harm-reduction approach to protecting young people from accidental fentanyl poisoning.