Connie Chen

Second-year resident Connie Chen, MD, comes from a family of physicians, including both of her parents, maternal grandparents, and countless aunts, uncles and cousins. She says, “Family reunions are like Grand Rounds. Medicine is a deep part of my cultural heritage.” But Connie’s career in medicine is distinctly 21^st century: in addition to being a physician, she’s also co-founder of Vida, an app that provides health coaching services through a smartphone interface.  

She’s on a unique path. While in medical school at UCSF, Connie says she “fell in love with the ‘maker culture’ and the idea of ‘hacking health care’ through the application of novel software approaches to problems in medicine.” To pursue this interest, Connie took a 3-year leave of absence after her intern year to start Vida. Today, Vida counts among its customers Fortune 500 employers and major insurers. The company has raised over $10 million in venture capital from top investors in Silicon Valley.

As Vida continues to grow, Connie has stepped aside from her full-time role with the company in order to return to Stanford and complete her residency. She was drawn to Stanford for its entrepreneurial history and culture of inter-disciplinary innovation and collaboration. She says, “It is amazing to have a world class medical facility co-located with such cutting-edge scientific discoveries.”

She now fills her days with what she calls “an ever-changing” and “ever-stimulating” mix of direct patient interactions, care coordination, didactics and meetings with partners (both for research and ongoing business collaborations outside residency). In addition, she spends as much time as possible outdoors hiking, biking and skiing with her husband and their two dogs, Porkchop and Katsu.