I help surgeons become trusted digital voices - because in today’s world, trust is your currency and reputation your bank account.

I help surgeons turn trust into leverage. Not followers. Not fame. Real authority that changes how patients, peers, and industry treat them.

I work with surgeons who are technically excellent but don’t have time or skill to build trust and monetize their reputation. I fix that.

Through my Physician Brand Rx™ protocol I help surgeons:
	•	Clarify their message so it cuts through the noise
	•	Show up consistently online in a way that earns trust
	•	Build digital authority that elevates their reputation and expands their impact

At FEED. The Agency - our award-winning physician brand firm - we create:
	•	Strategic brand positioning that sets surgeons apart
	•	Premium, ghostwritten content that accelerates trust
	•	High-impact DOL campaigns that make surgeons the obvious choice for patients, peers, media, and MedTech

My mission is simple:

Help surgeons step into Digital Opinion Leadership- so their expertise isn’t just seen… it’s sought after.

Matthew Scott

Steve Carell didn’t know Yolanda was going to shave his pubic hair.


He found out the same way most patients do.

Right before it happened.

I watched his hip replacement video. Because underneath the comedy is something every surgeon should feel a little uncomfortable about.

Your patients are walking into one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives with massive information gaps. Not about the surgery. About the experience around the surgery.

-Nobody told Steve about Yolanda. 
-Nobody warned him the OR was going to look like a torture chamber. 
-Nobody mentioned he’d be asked to choose between titanium and ceramic while his brain was running on pure adrenaline and fear.

He’s Steve Carell. Imagine your average 67-year-old patient.

Ryan “Saw-Bones” Molli, D.O. Hands down, the best I’ve experienced at closing that gap before the patient ever meets him in person.

THE Orthopedic Journey is Dr. Molli’s 
patient experience framework built around a simple insight: the clinical outcome is only part of what patients actually go through. Most arrive confused, under-informed, and anxious — not because the medicine failed them, but because no one designed the experience around them. 

This changes that.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Steve Carell turned it into a bit. 

Like Dr. Molli, you can turn it into a practice builder.

Matthew Ray Scott, MS

Surgeon Reputation Architect | Physician Brand Rx™ Creator | Best-Selling Author | Voted Best Cause Marketing Agency by The AMA.

I hired my daughter.

I got a front row seat to watch Sierra become something I never coached her to be. A creative. A real one. The kind who sees angles in a story before you’ve even finished telling it. The kind who makes content that doesn’t sound like content.

I’ve spent years helping surgeons find their voice. Telling them that the most powerful thing they own isn’t their technique, it’s their story.

Turns out I was raising someone who already knew that.

I post this because if you’re a parent watching your kid quietly become something extraordinary, you know this feeling doesn’t have a clean word for it.

It sits somewhere between pride and humility.

Because you look at them and think: some of that is me.

And then you look a little closer and think: most of that is entirely her.

Sierra, watching you build your creative life has made me better at building mine.

That’s not something I expected. But it’s the best thing about working with you.

No alternative text description for this image

Sierra (middle daughter) and I got tattoos together.

Today we rebuilt the agency website side by side. By noon we had sauce on the stove. Chicken cutlets in the pan. Homemade meatballs from scratch. 

The kind of vodka penne that takes the whole afternoon and makes the whole house smell like Sunday.

She’s 30. She doesn’t have to work with her dad.

I spent 20 years in medtech learning what it means to leave a mark. Rooms full of surgeons, C-suites, board members. 

I built a business to buy back my time and stop waiting for someone else to decide what my life was worth.

Turns out the best thing I did with that time was share it with my tribe (family/framily).

People ask me what success looks like. I used to have a complicated answer.

Now I just say: my daughter chose to build something with me. 

And we made dinner while we did it.

That’s the whole thing.

Matthew Ray Scott

(99+) Feed | LinkedIn

JSESSIONID

li_at

Talks about #branding, #medicalsales, #healthcarebranding, and #medicaldevicemarketing

Beavis and Butt-Head Understand Medtech’s AI Strategy Better Than Medtech Does.

I’m helping surgeons launch AI integration companies and I’m around Med Tech leaders sniffing around AI. 

It’s a scene from this Saturday Night Live skit. 

Senators asking questions that made you cringe.

Executives answering with words that meant nothing.

And somewhere in the background, Beavis and Butt-Head going “heh heh… he said algorithm.”

I kept thinking: this is medtech’s AI moment.

Fictional hearing. Real energy.

SENATOR: “Can you explain how your AI platform improves surgical outcomes?”

MEDTECH EXEC: “Absolutely. Our proprietary deep learning infrastructure leverages real-time intraoperative data to create a connected ecosystem of intelligence across the care continuum.”

SENATOR: “So… does it work?”

MEDTECH EXEC: “It’s a force multiplier.”

Beavis: “Heh heh. He said multiplier.”
Butt-Head: “Yeah yeah. He has no idea what it does.”

Here’s what I know after working with surgeons for two decades.

The ones winning right now are not waiting for their medtech partner to figure out AI strategy.

They are building their own.
Their voice. Their data. Their reputation. Their distribution.

The buzzwords are somebody else’s problem.

The outcomes are theirs.

To my knowledge, I co-develop more digital thought leadership about robotic surgery for orthopedic surgeons, minimally invasive spine surgery for spine surgeons, and interventional pain as a profitable integration into orthopedic and spine practices than anyone in the world.

Over 500 surgeons - We work with some of the top orthopedic, spine, neurosurgery, and interventional pain physicians on the planet.

Other than Joe Urban and Thomas Fleetwood - I will, likely, never receive a call from a medtech sales or marketing leader saying:

"You're shaping the narrative of our technology with our top surgeons. And it doesn't cost our company one penny. The purpose of my call is to find out how we can arm you and equip you with better information."

But think about what's actually happening.

The surgeons we represent are not waiting to be selected by med tech as KOLs...

We're taking surgeons and turning them into Digital Opinion Leaders.

DOLs who build audiences. DOLs who create content ecosystems. DOLs who shape how the next generation of surgeons thinks about your technology.

Medtech companies spend millions on KOL development, advisory boards, peer-to-peer education, and surgeon engagement programs.

We do that work organically.

Not as a vendor to medtech. As a trusted advisor to their most influential surgeons.

The irony?

Our independence is why surgeons trust us.
And that trust is why the content works.

Which is exactly why the technology narrative gets shaped in the first place.
So no, I don't wait for med tech to call. 

But someone in medtech marketing should probably do the math.

For five years straight I’ve sent 7 personalized videos, a day, to 7 people I want to help before 7:01 AM.

Each one, typically, is under 60 seconds. All recorded on my phone or webcam. No studio. No editor. No script.

Five years in a row it has created multiple seven figures in revenue.

Most people building a service business are waiting on funnels and algorithms to do the work they’re afraid to do themselves. 

That work is showing up for specific people, by name, before the rest of the world has had their coffee.

A 47-second video that proves you actually see someone cuts through more noise than any campaign ever will. It says I know who you are. I know what you’re working on. I think I can help.

People don’t hire strangers. They hire people who already felt like they gave a damn.

7 videos. 7 people. Before 7:01 AM. Start tomorrow.

Everyone else, but you and I, will quit after the third week.

For years in medtech, I lived inside a trade show booth.

Not figuratively. Literally. You showed up early, you stood tall, you waited. The philosophy was simple: be there, stay visible, and when a surgeon walks by, you go get them. Chase them down the aisle if you have to. That was the job.

I understood it. I did it. And a part of me always felt like there had to be a better way.

When I left medtech and started working directly with surgeons, I made myself a promise. I would never ask a surgeon to come find me. I would never ask for an appointment. I would never show up in their world with my hand out.

Instead, I started sending hyper-personalized videos. Seven of them. To seven different surgeons I genuinely wanted to help. Before 7:01 AM. Every single day. No pitch. No ask. Just value, delivered with intention, before most people have had their first cup of coffee.

That ritual changed everything.

So fifteen years later, when I do show up at a conference, I am not spending $40,000 on carpet and a back wall. I am not wandering the floor hoping to run into someone. I already know exactly who I am there to see. 

I fly into Nashville or New Orleans or LA, I stay in the shadows, I rent a bougie Air BnB, nearby, I put my culinary school to work, feed a surgeon, and I have one conversation that actually matters.

Then I get on a plane and go home.

I spent a decade waiting for surgeons to walk past a booth.

Now they ask me what I’m cooking next trade show.

My father was 65 when he died.

He had run marathons. He was one of the top tennis players and golfers in the South. 

Death. Nobody saw it coming. 

That’s the thing about unexpected loss. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t give you time to prepare a response.

What it does give you, if you’re paying attention, is a moment of absolute clarity about what matters.

My mother stood in the middle of that grief and did something I’ve thought about almost every day since. She prayed the Prayer of Jabez over my life.

If you don’t know it, here’s the short version. Jabez shows up in 1 Chronicles almost as a footnote. Two verses in the middle of a genealogy that most people skip. He asks God for four things. Bless me. Enlarge my territory. Let your hand be with me. Keep me from harm.

That’s it. No elaborate theology. No conditions. Just a man asking to matter more than his circumstances suggested he would.

My mother prayed that prayer over me the way only a woman who has just buried her husband can pray something. With everything she had left.

And I made a decision.

Not just about my career or my company or what I was going to build. I made a decision about her.

She needed to mother me. I knew that. Grief does that. It reaches for the familiar things, the relationships that still make sense when everything else has stopped making sense. But I also knew something else. She needed to feel needed. Not just loved. Needed.

So I hired her.

She controls everything that touches money. Bookkeeping. Accounts payable. Accounts receivable. Hiring. Making sure everyone gets paid. She is the financial spine of everything we’ve built.

The agency doesn’t run without her. That’s not sentiment. That’s just true.

People talk about building a business like it’s a solitary act. Like the founder is out there alone, making something from nothing through sheer force of will. 

But every company I’ve ever respected has someone in it who holds the thing together quietly. Someone whose name isn’t on the press release but whose fingerprints are on every single decision that actually kept the lights on.

That’s my mom.

She prayed that my territory would be enlarged. And then she showed up and helped me build it.

I don’t know what promise you made in your hardest moment. I don’t know who was standing there when the call came or what you decided in the days after.

But I know this. The Prayer of Jabez isn’t a prosperity prayer. It’s a purposeful expansion prayer. It’s the prayer of someone who believes their life is supposed to count for more than it currently does and is willing to ask, out loud, for the help to make that happen.

My mother believed that about me before I believed it about myself.

The least I could do was build something worthy of the prayer.

The female surgeons I work with are among the most clinically rigorous people I've encountered in this space.

They are also operating inside a structural trap that their male counterparts never think about once.

Here's what behavioral psychology has documented - not opinion, peer-reviewed research - about how expert women are evaluated: women in high-status professional roles are assessed on two axes simultaneously. 

Competence and warmth. Men in identical roles are effectively assessed on one.

This asymmetry has a direct consequence that nobody in healthcare thought leadership is naming clearly enough.

Ask Kiran V. Patel, MD - we spend an entire dinner discussing such topics. 

Content that optimizes for warmth - relatable posts, personality-forward content, appearance-based visibility - suppresses perceived competence in the specific audiences where authority matters most. Peers. Industry. Referring surgeons. The medtech VP deciding who gets the advisory board call.

The female surgeon doesn't lose followers. She loses legibility in the rooms where likability is irrelevant.

This is not a critique of any individual surgeon's choices. It is a diagnosis of a market asymmetry that was not designed by surgeons and was not designed to serve them.

The surgeons I work with who understand this stop asking how to appear more relatable. They start asking what signal the right audience is actually calibrating for. That question leads somewhere completely different - to clinical specificity, to intellectual point of view, to a platform the authority economy can actually act on.

The research on this goes back decades. Heilman (2001). Fiske et al. (2002). The mechanism is documented. The application to digital reputation is newer — and it is the thing nobody is building a communication narrative framework around yet.

If you are a female surgeon building a platform and you have ever felt the gap between your follower count and the quality of your inbound opportunities -this is worth understanding. 

The gap is not a content problem. 
It is a signal problem. 
And it has a structural explanation.

My word for 2026 is authorship.
Not the kind you think.

Yes, I co-authored a bestselling book.
Yes, we are launching another one this year.
But authorship taught me something I was not expecting.

The best things I have ever built were co-authored.

2025 best-selling book, men@pause: Life 2.0, was co-authored by two buddies I grew up with. 

Physician BrandRx was co-authored with Scott Sigman MD who believed reputation could be systematized.

Content Crib was co-launched six years ago with my buddy Eric I Anderson for healthcare leaders who wanted to learn how to become thought leaders. 

The Orthopreneurs Symposium was co-launched with Ryan “Saw-Bones” Molli, D.O. & Chris McClellan, DO  to equip surgeons who refused to separate their clinical identity from their entrepreneurial one.

Ortho Mafia Poets was co-launched w/Dr. Scott Sigman as a community that understood the best surgeon thought leadership does not sound like marketing. It sounds like conviction.

Required a refresh. 

We canceled all of our big medtech business. Every contract. Every retainer. Every safe, predictable revenue stream.

Instead we went all in on 100 surgeons.

Quietly in 2025 becoming reputation architects. 

Unconventionally, we started with professional athletes. Learning how to help them turn “pro” in something other than their sport. 

Next, we began working with orthopedic, spine, and neurosurgeons. Studied what trust looks like when the stakes are a career, a body, a legacy. Already learned that reputation is not what you say about yourself. It is what the right people repeat when you are not in the room.

We approached med tech leaders, thinking they would be interested in thought leadership. Only 1. Others were indifferent. 

We had a plan. Going all-in. We became the surgeon reputation architect. A job description you will not find. 

Not a marketing agency. Not a social media manager. Not a content mill with a healthcare vertical.

An architect. Someone who studies the blueprint before building. Someone who understands that a surgeon’s reputation has a structure, a foundation that has to hold before you ever add a story.

Now we are expanding. Interventional pain. Cardiac.

Not because we are chasing growth. Because surgeons in those specialties started asking why no one was doing for them what we were doing for ortho and spine.

We opted out of launching campaigns for medtech giants. We opted in to brand launches for medtech startups and surgeon-founder ventures.

Your reputation is being written whether you author it or not.

LinkedIn just got a lot smarter. And most surgeon content just got a lot more invisible.


The platform rolled out a new algorithm that reads your posts semantically. That means it is no longer counting keywords. It is reading for meaning. It is assessing whether you actually have a coherent point of view or whether you are just producing content that sounds like every other surgeon on the platform.

Here is what that means for you practically.

If your last 30 posts could have been written by any surgeon in your specialty, the algorithm now knows that. It cannot distinguish you from the noise. So it does not distribute you.

If your posts, read as a body of work, tell a story about who you are, what you believe, and what you stand for clinically, the algorithm begins to associate your profile with that topic. 

Distribution follows authority.

This is the KOL to DOL transition playing out at the algorithmic level.

LinkedIn is now rewarding surgeons who have built a point of view, not just a posting schedule.

Three things to do right now.

1. Stop posting tips. Start posting beliefs.

2. Pick three to five ideas you return to repeatedly and approach them from different angles, different patient stories, different clinical moments.

3. Own specific language. The surgeons who become the algorithm’s default recommendation for their niche are the ones who consistently occupy the same semantic territory.

Clinical excellence got you to the table.
Narrative capacity is what keeps you at it.

If you insist on writing the way you have always written, talking about the same things your peers have always talked about, refusing to learn the frameworks of narrative transportation, perspective, and problem solving, and objecting to the visual structure of how content actually gets read on this platform, the algorithm is not going to argue with you. It is just going to ignore you.

The algorithm just made that official.

Hospitals spend hundreds of thousands dollars on marketing departments that make every surgeon look identical. That's not a branding strategy. That's a camouflage strategy.

Professional headshot. White coat. Arms crossed and a tagline about "compassionate, patient-centered care."

Now multiply that across every surgeon on the hospital website.
Same photo style. Same language. Same everything.

That's not a branding strategy. That's a camouflage strategy.

The surgeon who replaced 5,000 joints and pioneered an outpatient protocol gets the same bio template as the surgeon who graduated residency last year.
The surgeon who developed a technique that changed how an entire procedure is performed gets the same "Dr. Smith is passionate about helping patients return to active lifestyles" copy as everyone else on the page.

The hospital didn't build their brand. The hospital buried it.
Not intentionally. But effectively.

Because hospital marketing departments aren't designed to differentiate individual surgeons. They're designed to protect institutional consistency. 

Those are two completely different objectives.

So the surgeon with 20 years of expertise, a philosophy that changes how patients think about their own surgery, and a track record that medtech companies would pay to be associated with...

...looks identical to every other name on a dropdown menu.

That's not a visibility problem. That's a translation problem.

The clinical excellence exists. The reputation architecture doesn't.

And until that changes, the surgeon's expertise compounds inside the hospital while their reputation flatlines outside of it.

Surgeons don't need to leave their institution to fix this. They need to stop relying on it as their only megaphone.

Your hospital markets the system. You need to digitize trust.
And those are two very different prescriptions.

- - - 

I help surgeons build something most of them didn't know they were missing.
Not a bigger following. Not a prettier website.

A reputation that works when they're not in the room.

Category ownership. Thought leadership. Media attention. Medtech monetization.

That sequence isn't random.

When a surgeon owns a category, they stop competing and start being sought out. When they publish ideas that challenge how people think, media and conferences come to them. And when a medtech company can see that a surgeon doesn't just use a device but can articulate why it matters, that's when the consulting conversation starts.

None of that comes from posting more often. It comes from reputation architecture — a system that translates what you already know into positioning that compounds over time.

- - - 
What prompted this post? I'm was on a Zoom w/a 30-something hospital marketing director telling a prestigious spine surgeon he can't do anything that can be perceived as personal branding. Only the hospital can "market" his personal reputation. 

Why LinkedIn is the ideal medium for surgeons.

Matthew, you must enjoy jumping from perfectly good airplanes. 

"No, I just prefer hanging out with those who do."

Ted Williams divided the strike zone into 77 cells.

Each one roughly the size of a baseball. He calculated his batting average for every single cell. Low outside corner? .230. Belt-high, middle-in? .400+.

His philosophy came down to one discipline. Only swing at pitches in your happy zone. 

Even when the umpire called it a strike/when the crowd bood/when the manager wanted more aggression.

He refused.

.344 lifetime average. Highest on-base percentage in baseball history. The last human being to hit .400.

Williams did not have the best swing. He had the best discipline. He understood something most people never figure out.

You do not win by doing more. You win by knowing where you are .400 and refusing to swing anywhere else.

I have observed two surgeons who remind me of Williams more than they would ever give themselves credit for.

These two surgeons will elbow me in the rib cage for drawing attention to them. 

Dr. Charlie DeCook built 12x12. Twelve total joints by lunch. Not by moving faster. By mapping every second of the OR the way Williams mapped every cell of the strike zone. 

Every role defined. 
Every instrument anticipated. 
Every wasted motion eliminated. 

After filming him: 

It is not speed. 
It is precision that looks like speed because nothing is wasted.

Dr. Robert Masson MD neurosurgeon and Founder of eXeX saw what most surgeons visualize: the best way to make the surgeon better is to remove every distraction around them. 

He built a mixed reality and AI platform not for the surgeon’s hands but for the surgical team. The logistics. The flow. 

The invisible architecture that lets the surgeon operate in calm, focused flow. 

He described his ideal OR the way Williams must have felt when the batter’s box went quiet.

(Full transparency: I serve on the eXeX advisory board.)

Both surgeons studied their craft at a cellular level and refused to swing at .230 pitches.

Swinging at .230 pitches because it felt wrong to watch them go by.

-Williams said no with his bat.
-Buffett says no with his checkbook.
-Dr. DeCook says no with his OR clock.
-Dr. Masson says no with his operating environment.

Find your 77 cells.
Ignore the rest.
Let them boo.

Believe → Focus → Disrupt → Repeat.

Neurosurgeon | Biomedical Engineer | CEO, eXeX™ | Surgery Intelligence | Healthy Longevity

eXeX

I spent years in MedTech as a VP of Sales deciding which surgeons got the call.

I know exactly how the KOL designation works. Who gets selected. Why they get selected. And what the company is actually buying when they put a surgeon’s name on a roster.

They are not buying your surgical excellence. They never were.

They are borrowing your credibility to move their product. Those two things have been dressed up as a partnership for three decades and I was inside the machine long enough to know nobody talks about that distinction out loud.

The surgeon produces the authority. The company borrows it.

I left MedTech to build something on the other side of that equation. And the first thing I noticed when I started working with surgeons on their own reputation architecture is how many of them were auditing themselves against criteria that were never designed with their interests at the center.

Waiting to be designated. Waiting to be placed on a panel. Waiting for an external party to publicly confirm what their patients and colleagues already knew privately.

I watched surgeons with fifteen years of category-defining outcomes sit invisible online while the industry circled the same rotating faces at the same conferences.

That is not a talent problem. That is a system problem.

And the surgeons who understand the system stop playing by its rules.

Here is what I have seen happen when a surgeon stops treating the KOL designation as the destination and starts treating their own reputation as the asset.

MedTech stops being the gatekeeper and starts being the opportunity. Companies do not pursue surgeons who are waiting to be found. They move toward surgeons who are already visible. Already authoritative. Already shaping the conversation their customers are paying attention to.

The platform you build does not compete with the KOL model.

It makes you the one they call before the budget cycle closes.

If you are a surgeon who has been waiting for an external designation to validate what your outcomes already prove, building your own reputation architecture is the right decision.

Because MedTech needs your credibility to sell their product.

You never needed their platform to build your authority.

I just wish someone had told you that sooner.

Stop Trying to Be Relatable: Build Your Surgical Reputation, Not Your Follower Count

March 20-21.

Content Crib 6.0 is built on the belief:

The right partnership changes everything.

One person with a good idea.
Linked with the right person.
Creates something disproportionate in impact.

1 + 1 = 3.

Not because you work harder.
Because you stop building in the dark.

March 20-21, 2026
Bentonville, Arkansas

This is not a conference where we only celebrate what worked.

We are going to show how it was built.
Step by step.
Including the mistakes.
Including the cost.
Including the moments where it almost did not happen.

If you are a physician, healthcare leader, orthopreneur, or MedTech builder, and you are carrying any of these quietly -
	•	A book you have not written yet
	•	A six-figure side hustle you have not launched
	•	A category you want to own but cannot see the path
	•	A smarter way to serve patients without abandoning your post
	•	A business idea that needs a second brain and a second set of hands

This is for you.

Because nobody teaches the hardest part:
How to go from idea to partnership.
How to find the right creative partner.
How to pitch them.
How to build something together.
How to make it sustainable without burning down your life.

If that is the season you are in, comment or DM me and I will send you the details for Content Crib 6.0.

Only 50 will hear me, in person, break down the (1+1=3) protocol I used to co-launch three surgeon-led seven-figure businesses with zero marketing spend and no sales team.

March 20th. Content Crib 6.0. Bentonville, Arkansas. 3:37 PM.

1. It starts with identity. Not your CV. Not your title. Your aspirational archetype. The version of you that owns a category instead of competing in one.
2. You develop content that positions you as the digital opinion leader in your category. 
3. You connect with the people you actually want to help. 
4. You build a community of like minds. And that community becomes the foundation of something no algorithm can manufacture.
5. Trust and reputation as the ultimate currency.

On March 20th-21st I will share this entire framework with 50 surgeons and healthcare thought leaders who are ready to punch imposter syndrome in the mouth, pursue a creative partnership, and stop waiting for permission to lead.

50 seats. Two days. 

Your next bestseller, your seven-figure side hustle, your category-defining moment is closer than you think. The only thing standing between you and it is the belief that you have to build it alone.

You don't.

I became a lifestyle design entrepreneur around three non-negotiables.

1. Never carry someone else’s quota.
2. Never wait for external validation to get paid.
3. And never live somewhere you can’t take a leak in your own backyard at 2 in the afternoon.

Four acres in Northwest Arkansas. That’s the dream.

No neighbors in my business. No HOA. House paid for in cash. Just me, the Ozarks, and the kind of freedom most people put on a vision board.

Then we went and built a Finnish sauna right onto the side of the house.

Life got significantly better. And significantly more problematic for my wife.

Because now I’m walking from the sauna to the back porch in nothing but a pair of tighty-whities. Towel optional. Confidence levels: elite. Bulk in tow.

She tolerated it for about three weeks.
Then she bought me a robe.
I wear it now. Sometimes.

The point is this. A lot of people are out here optimizing their LinkedIn profile, their morning routine, their quarterly goals.

I’m optimizing my acreage-to-dignity ratio.

And I’m doing just fine.

Northwest Arkansas. Come for the trails. Stay for the personal freedom.

Find your WHERE and your WHAT and HOW come trailing along. 

#LifestyleDesign #NWA #WorkFromAnywhere #TheFieldManual

Surgeons are the only profession in the world that spent a decade earning the most trusted credential in society, and then decided the key to an audience was pretending they didn't.

I hate #myopia. But I love solving commercial puzzles.

I help eye care organizations turn specialty vision and myopia management into their next growth engine—by aligning strategy, story, and scale.

That’s been my playbook across 25 years leading commercial growth at companies like Bausch + Lomb, CIBA Vision/Novartis, and CooperVision—after cutting my teeth at General Mills and Coca-Cola.

I’ve helped scale myopia management and specialty contact lenses from fringe to frontline—earning trust from ECPs, building market access, and turning innovation into adoption.

My combat leadership background shaped how I lead teams under pressure, influence without noise, and build trust fast in complex systems.

Known for blending commercial firepower with clinical credibility, I operate at the intersection of vision science, practitioner success, and sustainable market growth.

If you're looking to unlock your next chapter in specialty eye care, let’s connect.

Tony Sommer

For the win.  Brainomix gets more funding.  And that's a big deal.  

It's Sunday, there's coffee, and Holly Scott's #medtech rundown for the week.  It's how I get ready for the week.

Why? 🤔

Not for the companies.  For the patterns.

This week’s pattern is simple:
Capital doesn’t invest in ideas.
It invests in insight.

Look at the throughline:
510(k) clearances.
PMA approvals.
Reimbursement wins.
Series A. Series C.
US expansion plans.
Brainomix is the classic story.

When investors deploy 8 figures worth of money, they’re not buying hope.
They’re buying the throughline.  

Founders pitch innovation.
Investors back execution.

And here’s the part that can be missed.
Conviction and investment reward success.
Like a snowball rolling downhill. 
With science, engineering, and luck it becomes a happy ending.

Like for Brainomix.

Does your business follow this pattern?  If you looked at it like an investor does, would you survive the audit?  Or do you have work to do?😉
---------------
Personal and professional development is available on demand.

Holly, Joe Mullings, and Ryan Blasko add insight and value every day.

Rick Voight, Kevin Berchelmann, Chris Grosse, Eric I Anderson, Tammy Penhollow, D.O. and Adrienne Towsen, MD are in my feed.

Who influences you?  Whose thinking makes you better every day?

#leadership #changinglives #dothething

CXO | Board Member | Turning myopia management into a growth engine for eye care | I’ve hiked 8% of the Appalachian Trail |

Senior Partner at The Mullings Group | Global Medical Device & Life Sciences | Executive Search-Building Companies and Careers

Hey #MedTech! 
As we jump into March, let’s look at the news highlights of the week….

Abram Scientific, a company creating a portable diagnostic system for rapid information about blood coagulation closed an $11.75M Series A round. Abhishek Ramkumar

Avisi Technologies raised $10.7M Series A to support their trial towards their aqueous shunt for intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with open‑angle glaucoma. Rui Jing J. 

Liquet Medical Inc. received a second FDA 510(k) clearance for their vascular drug delivery catheter with real-time pulmonary artery (PA) pressure capabilities. John Schindler

Bryan Lord, accomplished CEO, investor and strategist, launched Flightline Partners alongside partners and co-founders Evan Goldberg and Michael Miniati, with a goal to be “The Entrepreneur’s Co-Pilot” through advisory services. 

Quantum Surgical acquired NeuWave Medical Inc. a microwave ablation technology developer previously owned by Johnson & Johnson, with both companies now operating as subsidiaries of a newly created parent company, Precision IO Group Inc., led by CEO Kurt Azarbarzin

Synergy Spine Solutions received FDA premarket approval for its disc for its motion-preserving artificial disc system. Josh Butters

THINK Surgical announced the first completed cases using its miniature robotic system with the Stryker knee implant

Edwards Lifesciences outlined a renewed vision for its “Every Heartbeat Matters” global initiative, targeting broadened access to lifesaving structural heart treatment 

Xenocor received FDA Clearance for the first single use 5mm articulating laproscope for surgical visualization. Tony Watson

Wellumio announced the first in-human clinical trial for their portable stroke detection system. Shieak Tzeng 

Vena Medical announced FDA clearance for their “MicroAngioscope”, the world’s smallest camera capable of going inside veins and arteries to treat stroke.  Michael Phillips 

Recor Medical is giving Medtronic healthy competition in the renal denervation space, gaining reimbursement in Japan

Breath Diagnostics, Inc., capturing a “single exhale” in a bag for clinical insight, received FDA BDD for the platform towards CV surgical risk Aaron Roebuck

Biomendex earned #510k for its bone graft, positioned for commercial growth in spine applications.  Pasi Kankaanpää

The story of the week goes to Brainomix.  They announced a series C raise of $25M to support US expansion of their AI imaging platforms, giving clinical insight into stroke and lung applications. The insinuation of AI into healthcare continues to grow, and this company has an impressive history of investor confidence and commercial execution. 

Thank you to LSI, MassDevice, MedTech Dive, MassMEDIC, MedTech Innovator, TMG Pulse, Wesley Kennedy-Sita, and all friends who share the great industry progress.

Open article: Brainomix Extends Series C Financing to $25.4M (£18.8M) to Support U.S. Expansion by prnewswire.com

Brainomix Extends Series C Financing to $25.4M (£18.8M) to Support U.S. Expansion

The hardest part of myopia management isn’t the fitting.
It’s what happens after the parent says,
 
“Let me think about it.”😳

That sentence is rarely about price.
It’s about uncertainty.
And maybe lack of expectations management when they came in.

They knew their child needed glasses.
They expected a $40 copay and cute, little frames.

Instead, it's a gazillion dollars on special glasses or contact lenses.💰

Since the category is underdeveloped.
Even though it is the standard of care.

Parents are processing:
 • Is this necessary?
 • Is this safe?
 • Are we overreacting?
 • Will this actually work?

If your team answers those questions differently, confidence erodes.

Clarity isn’t just clinical.
It’s narrative.

Who explains:
 • Long-term risk?
 • Why intervention now matters?
 • Why doing nothing is a decision?

Is it just you?  In the lane?  
In the context of a 20 minute exam?

Consistency builds confidence.
Inconsistency creates hesitation.

Most friction lives between steps, not within them.

If three team members describe your myopia program differently, the parent feels it.

Structure doesn’t make you a salesperson.
Heaven knows you didn't go to optometry school to sell.🤔

It makes you clear.
That's all.

And the process and the pathway can make it happen.

Or you can rely on luck. ☘️

#leadership #changinglives #dothething

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