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United States Zubin Damania, known as ZDoggMD, has transitioned from a practicing hospitalist to an influential internet personality and healthcare innovator, utilizing humor and music to address critical medical issues and advocate for patient-centered care.
Zubin Damania created his alter ego, ZDoggMD, in the early days of YouTube to educate patients in an entertaining way and to rally healthcare professionals. This persona is known for music videos, parodies, and comedy sketches about medical issues and systemic healthcare problems.
Founded by Zubin Damania, Turntable Health was an innovative direct primary care clinic in Las Vegas. It aimed to remix primary care by bringing doctors, nurses, and social workers together in a membership model focused on preventative care, stepping away from the traditional fee-for-service model. The clinic was funded by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and operated from 2013 to 2017.
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh encouraged and funded Zubin Damania's venture into creating Turntable Health, an innovative health care startup, as part of the Downtown Project to revitalize Las Vegas.
Zubin Damania delivered a presentation titled "Are Zombie Doctors Taking Over America?" at TEDMED in 2013, critically outlining issues in the US healthcare system and proposing his reconceptualization through Turntable Health.
Zubin Damania has been affiliated with UNLV School of Medicine as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine since February 2017.
Zubin Damania, born on April 23, 1973, in New Jersey to Indian Parsi doctor parents, grew up in Clovis, California. His academic journey led him to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology and minored in Music. He then attended the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF), graduating in 1999. During his medical school years, Damania started combining comedy with medicine, performing medical stand-up routines and even giving a memorable commencement speech at UCSF, which later garnered significant attention and was listed by NPR as one of the top commencement speeches.
After completing his internal medicine residency at Stanford University School of Medicine from 1999 to 2002, Damania served as a hospitalist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation for ten years (2003-2012), spending most of his time at Stanford University Hospital as an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine. During this period, he also maintained a side career performing stand-up comedy for medical audiences globally. Disillusioned by the fee-for-service model and increasing administrative burdens in healthcare, Damania began to channel his frustrations into comedic musical parodies, adopting the persona ZDoggMD, a gangsta rapper focusing on systemic healthcare issues and misconceptions.
This led to the founding of Turntable Health in 2013, a direct primary care clinic in Downtown Las Vegas, funded by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. This innovative clinic aimed to provide patient-focused, preventative care through a membership model, stepping away from traditional episodic payments. Although Turntable Health closed in 2017, Damania continued his work as ZDoggMD, producing hundreds of viral videos that educate and satirize the medical field, garnering millions of views and a large following. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at UNLV School of Medicine, a position he has held since February 2017.
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