DGTL Voices with Ed Marx - You Have to Fail to Succeed (ft. Jennifer Miles-Thomas)

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Dr. Jennifer Miles-Thomas is Vice Chair of Integration and Innovation at Northwestern Medicine, Executive Treasurer of the American Urological Association, and a former CEO of one of the largest private urology groups in the country. She earned her MD at Northwestern, completed her residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins, and her MBA at MIT Sloan. In this episode of DGTL Voices, Jennifer talks with Ed about the spinal meningitis diagnosis at age three that pointed her toward medicine, what changed when she got to MIT and started thinking alongside multinational CFOs and SpaceX engineers, and why she left a CEO seat for protected innovation time at a health system. She shares her perspective as a Black female urologist on what it took to navigate her training, how she leads through really listening, and why she believes failure is part of the path to anything worth building. https://marxadvisory.com

If this is real and you are giving me protective time to actually look into how we can change health care, we will make mistakes. Everyone's building it as the bus is moving. And what about that decision point for health care? Was there another catalyst that sort of led you to that path? As a black female urologist, I have certain patients who aren't black females that reach out to see me because they say, I think you probably went through and had to study harder than others. When you see opportunities to allow those who don't look like you to also experience and promote them, I've found in business, the best war room is the most diverse. Welcome to Digital Voices, where healthcare and life science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move healthcare forward.

Now your host, Ed Marks. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. So glad that you're here with us. I know you have a lot of different choices, but you're here, and we're going to make it worth your while because I have the amazing Dr. Jennifer, Miles Thomas. Jennifer, welcome to Digital Voices. Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to have you because you're a great leader. You're a great person. You have so much insight. And I know everyone is going to love hearing what you have to say. And we first met maybe a year ago or so, and we were at the Innovation Center at Northwestern. And it was just an amazing experience. And we got to meet you.

And that was maybe the best part of the whole thing. And so I was like, man, I just loved everything that I was hearing from you and learning from you. I was like, I have to have you at some day, at some point on the podcast. But Jennifer, the most important question we ask is the very first one. And that is what songs are on your playlists? Ooh. So I'm a bit of a diverse listener. I'm really into Teddy Swims right now.

So lose control. There's something about just the tone of his voice, the beat. It's almost like country-toying R&B put together. Nice. One of my favorite songs is the best part from her and Daniel Caesar. And there's something just about the love and the connection in that song. When I'm commuting, I love to hear John Vatis and Furlese and just move like a jazier version of it.

The one song that I do, like, historically just love, um, Wonderful World. It's a Wonderful World. Uh, so Louis Armstrong and just like that raspy kind of, yeah. And then the surprising one is I love Cardi B. So Bodak Yellow is like anthem, but that's not like very professional, but that's the real deal. No, I love it all. We do have a Spotify playlist called Digital Voices.

Oh. We will add some of the new ones there, including the great Schatchezmo. We'll add him to there as well. That's cool. What about life messages or mantras or quotes? Are there sort of words that guide how you live and operate? Over the years, and especially in leadership, I tried to look back at myself a little bit more objectively

and where I've kind of failed or not done as good of her job. And I think it was Maya Angelou actually said it, but Oprah kind of repeated it later and said, When people tell you who they are, believe them. And I have that underlying, like, desire to make people who I would like them to be, i.e., I don't know, ethical on time, you know, all those positive attributes that we want to put on those people. I mean, sometimes I was burned and I was realizing it's not a them problem. It was my problem where I assume they were someone that they weren't. And so that's my mantra now is when people tell you who they are, believe. then. Yeah, that's sage. I like that a lot. We're also trying to put together a playlist of everyone's sort of mantras or quotes says something we need to work on, but I think it would be a fabulous collection, just how to live life. So tell us more about you. We really didn't go into it in the beginning. I just said, hey, we met each other and you're amazing. Tell us who you are.

Like, even like, where did you, where were you born? Yeah, so I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. So was born in raised until about eighth grade as a Midwesterner. My, mother was a PhD psychologist and my dad is an engineer with an MBA who worked in nuclear power plants and quality assurance. So I was raised in that balance of science, technology, safety, but understanding who people are and figuring out how to communicate. So I was in Ohio until about eighth grade and we moved to Virginia. The reason why was my mother's side of the family was from Barbados, but she was raised in New York. And so, When my grandparents were ready to retire, there wasn't as great of a health system then.

So they decided to come to Cleveland. Well, lo and behold, the first winter came, and they were like, where am I? Like, we're not doing this. So the whole family picked up and moved to Virginia for a more moderate kind of weather lifestyle. So I went to high school and college in Virginia, med school in Chicago, and then residency in fellowship at Hopkins in Baltimore. So it was an interesting kind of Midwest East Coast culture, but I also always knew that, I mean, I wanted to be married, I wanted to have kids, I wanted that balance in life. So I got married after my first year of med school.

We have three kids. My husband's a basketball coach. So our life is literally crazy. We're here and we're there. Our kids learned to microwave food very early. I want to say in the first like five years of their lives, they had five different meanings. and people would just quit on us. And, like, in the morning, I had to be similar at 630.

And my husband would be like, well, I have a game. And I'd be like, where are the kids? Like, truly, like, reality show. But I'd probably be on Cinemax. So I probably wouldn't be in the world that I had. We rarely showed our life. After that, I mean, I really realized I liked a lot of different things. I spent most of my life training to be this surgeon, this doctor.

But I was like, there's other things than other parts of my brain that just kind of tickle and make me ask questions. And so that's really who I am, is someone who asked questions. And at this point in my life, I'm not afraid to explore the answers. Yeah, no, I love that. And was there a pivotal moment along that way that sort of fundamentally changed your trajectory? Probably my time in MIT. I know they'd probably love to hear that.

But I think it's a reality because that was one of the first times I just actually got to know people in multiple different industries. in multiple different countries simultaneously. And health care in the U.S. is very siloed. So you just, you know your specialty, you know medicine, you don't know much outside of that. But I had never really worked with like multinational CFOs and just have that, that global perspective. I really didn't work with a lot of VCs before. Rocket scientists, people who were talking about satellites from SpaceX, just the conversations

were different. Not saying that I didn't work with a lot of really smart people, but these people just thought differently. So then it causes you to think a little bit differently about what the opportunities could be versus what the normal protocol always is. And it's true. I mean, if I mess up, someone may die. Well, if they mess up in the sideline or the rocket, like the same thing can happen. So I realize that the risk is there in many different ways, but you can kind of think outside of the box. And that really gave me the opportunity to work with startups to really talk about innovation.

And that kind of led me no longer straight and near a path of just practicing medicine, a surgeon, just what else can happen. Yeah, that's super cool. And what about that decision point for health care? Like, obviously, you're in Cleveland and your mom is sort of in the health care space. Was there another catalyst that sort of led you to that path? Yeah, so actually it was spinal meningitis. So when I was about three, I contracted meningitis. Now, whether it was bacterial or viral, not 100% sure. But I remember growing up hearing about Dr. Hess, who was my pediatrician, that he figured out what was going on early. And then I was able to be treated and not have any suella. Because as a kid, you're not going to be able to communicate the way that she would now because I mean, I have a stick neck. I have high fevers. And so, When I heard that, I was like, oh, someone who didn't have all the information was able to figure it out.

So probably since kindergarten, I always said I was going to be a doctor. Now, did I know anything about urology? Absolutely not. But I knew I was going to be a doctor. That's very cool. And yeah, you mentioned urology. So how did that interest come about? Well, honestly, I went into med school thinking I was going to be a neurosurgeon, right?

I was like, oh, I'm going to be, you know, the next Ben Carson, which is the female version, right? And when I got to med school, we do rotation. So every six weeks, four, for six weeks, you rotate another service. And one of my friends who ended up going into anesthesia was like, I'm going to do urology. And I was like, I don't even know what urology is. And then I looked into it and I was like, I'm not male. Why would I want to do that? And so I was like, well, you know what?

Let me just explore. So I did a rotation. And first, it was actually pretty interesting. a lot of medicine, a lot of surgery, a lot of deep conversations with patients. And I was like, so this is not just the surgeon who cuts and then you never see them again. This is like long-term relationship. I can do this. And then every time I walked in the room, if either the patient or the wife would be like,

are you a pheno urologist? And I was thinking, is this something that's like not common? Now, remember, like I'm a little bit older, so this wasn't like, internet wasn't everywhere. it was still like isolated information available. And so I looked into it when I realized that there weren't that many. It was maybe 5% in the U.S. when I was going through training. And so I was like, wait a minute, why aren't we here? We need to be here.

And so then I decided to become a urologist. And it fortunately worked out for me. Yeah, you haven't looked back since. And I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing today at Northwestern, but what was the impetus for you to then? shift, and come back to Chicago, essentially, right, and go to Northwest. Oh, yeah. So this one was a little bit. Like, again, like I was saying, like just to think outside the box, what else is possible? What else do you want to explore? So in my life, what was

going on? I was the CEO of one of the largest urology groups in the country, private groups. Yeah. And, I mean, I was working hard. I understood what was doing. We were building. We were doing well. We were recruiting. I ate dinner with a friend who was like, yeah, you should come to Northwestern. I was like, for what? I'm going to go from running a business, being independent, doing what I want to do, to an employee at a large house in academics. And I was like, I'm not sure that that's exactly what I want to do. I can practice anywhere in the country if I wanted to change my job. And he was like, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, we have an innovation center. And I was like, what does that mean? And so he knew what I was interested in and what I wanted to do. So I, I, I came, did an interview, met with quite a few people, worked with the AI machine learning team, worked with the venture side, met with the CEO. And I was just like, if this is real and you were giving me protective time to actually look into how we can change healthcare, how we can look into the future, we will make mistakes

because it's all Mason right now. There's no guidelines. There's no rules. Everyone's building it as the bus is moving. If you were allowing me to try that and make mistakes potentially and not get terminated, then I'm a little bit. And the answer was like, yes. And I can honestly say everything that they promised actually has come to fruition. Sometimes it's the bait and switch and then you're like in the basement like shuggling coal.

But that's not the case. They were actually, I mean, transparent. And it's worked out very well. Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah. So you're the vice chair, position, integration and innovation. So there's probably not a typical day, but what would be a typical month or something?

You know, plus you're still doing surgery. Yeah. So my week is really broken up and that helps me like compartmentalize each of the roles. There always is overlap, but it kind of makes me more efficient because I can really focus. I know we always say people can multitask, but if you really focus for like a concrete period of time, you can do so much more. And so typically I operate on Mondays. So anyone that I see during the week, I'll have an OR schedule on Monday. My mind is committed to operating on Mondays.

I see patients Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the office. And then Thursdays and Fridays are my academic days. So those are the days that I write papers, write books, give lectures, go to the regions. So one of the things that we're working on and part of my role is integration. So it's figuring out how does this office run? What do these physicians or team members need? and then, hey, what are we doing well here that needs to happen there and making sure everyone's actively communicating because it's hard. If you have nine different hospitals and you have 15 different

offices, people don't know each other, right? They're so far as you're graphically apart, but you need someone to kind of be that conduit of like, oh, you need help in there. Guess what? This person, Sally, over here, did an excellent job. Let me connect you. Let's be on a call. And you help smooth those arrangements because as a practicing clinician, like you are working, you are seeing patients, you are doing your inbox. All of this extra is time, we call it pajama time. You're doing it at night. You're doing it in between. Like, there's only so much time in the day and we want people not to burn out. I'd love to shadow you for a week. That'd be kind of fun, especially in the third, well, maybe not. It depends on the day. What are one or two things that you can share

that either you're working on in the innovation space now. And I saw, yeah, yeah, I mentioned on top, you guys have this great innovation suite, lab. It's pretty amazing. What are one or two things that maybe you've done that you're super proud of that you can share or maybe one or two things that you're all working on? Yeah. So one of the things that we've done is with integration, really worked with innovation across the different specialties.

So what used to happen is a representative for, let's say, a device company would come and kind of pick off individual physicians and talk about, hey, you should use my product. And then it was like, oh, well, we should use this product. No one understood pricing. No one understood trials. It was one off. No one communicated. Well, part of my role is like, hey, we have an innovation committee.

So now everyone has the same conversation from all the regions at the same time. We do trials. Everyone gets approval from all of the hospitals the same time so that we are a collective group saying this is what we've decided to use, not letting industry. or the rep of the day come in and kind of dictate that. But the other thing that I've worked and kind of promoted really well was using the use of AI scribes, which are a lot more commonplace now than they were maybe two years ago, learning to be very flexible because we're really kind of rigid-minded up. Your note has to look like this.

These are the words you'd have to use. Well, for billing and coding, yes, but the whole note, the whole reason we write a note is to communicate our findings and what we think should happen for the page. And so when you kind of get past that mindset and you're a little bit more free, these AI scribes are great. So there were two different trials that I did. I helped convince the kind of naysayer physicians on our team of, I've been doing this for 20 years. I don't want to try. Well, why don't you just try it this way?

Let me help you. Send me a text, if you or get stuck some way and kind of almost like a translator communicator of, hey, there are multiple other ways to do this. Let's try to find a better way that works for you. It may not be exactly the same, but let's make it work for you. And so those are the two things I've been most proud of. Yeah, I love that because those are repeatable to be able to do a lot of other types of innovation if you get those sort of foundational things.

And that's a great example. I want to move to leadership. So that's really the key theme all along. You've had all these amazing positions that we've talked about. And clearly, you are able to be successful because of leadership. what are one or two skills that you think have really helped you in all of these leadership roles? I found that one of the key skills for me and just in leadership is the ability to listen and really listen. So a lot of times we listen in a way that we can quickly answer the question or to kind of end the conversation.

But that's not the goal of a conversation. The cool of a conversation is for the person to share what they are thinking. And, I mean, as a surgeon, I'm kind of like to the point and direct. But when I'm with patience, I sit down. I relax. There is no other agenda, except this is that person's time to share what's going on. And then I learned that it doesn't just affect patience. Everyone that you talk to, they're sharing something about their life.

Like, we have limited days on this earth. they are sharing a portion of their time with you. And so the best thing I can do is listen, but actually listen to what they're saying. While looking at their eyes, while looking at their mannerisms and figuring out, is this something that's difficult for them to share? Is this something that they're trying to pull the wool over my eyes? But trying to get as much information as possible,

because then we can kind of move forward in that relationship and I can help them get where they need or get what they need from me. My CV is, I would say, it's impressive. I've done a lot with, in a short amount of time, but I never come off as unapproachable. I'm very open. You can always ask me anything. I'm pre-laid back. I mean, I'm a surgeon, so I'm type A.

But I try to limit those barriers because I feel like it's never a you and them. We have to change this world collectively. And the more open you can be, the more information people will share with you so that you can build it together. And I am witness to much of that of what you just shared, not as your patient, but your ability to listen whenever we've spoken and even now and your humility and just the flexibility. That's really cool. You are a black female CEO, surgeon. you've broken through a lot of barriers that have traditionally been there. What was that like?

Because obviously, I can't relate, but I want to know because I want to get better myself. So as a black child, you were always told you have to be better than. Because anything that you do is not going to be just reflective of you. It's the people who follow you. And you also understand that the generation ahead of you did not have the same opportunities. So anything that you're given, if you do not excel, you are basically changing the future for others. Because if you don't have exposure to a certain culture, then the one person that you happen to know, even if it's superficial, represents the entire culture. So I would say

that going through med school, going through residency, it was stressful because, yes, it's hard work, But also, you always had to have everything together. You had to be on time. Your presentations had to be very tight. You had to be eloquent. You really didn't have the opportunity to make multiple mistakes because you were kind of crafting the future for others. As a black female urologist, I have certain patients who aren't black females that reach out to see me because they say, I think you probably went through and had to study harder than others. So I really appreciate that.

and I want to make sure that I can clean that knowledge and that experience. And I appreciate that that's recognized. Super interesting. And what would your advice be to listeners? I always say listeners, but now we're actually visual as well. I need a word here. But our participants who are engaging with us, what would you say to anyone who's coming,

who's not traditional white male in terms of any encouragement or tips? They can't break you. You can do whatever you want. If this one path seems blocked, there's always a way to go around. There's always a back door. You just have to find when you see opportunities to allow those who don't look like you to also experience and promote them. Because a lot of times, especially now, as you people across just like the workforce, a lot of times people are getting laid off. And when you're asked why, it's because, oh, I was more familiar with John versus James.

Jane. Well, that's because John is comfortable. John looks like you. You inter socially with John. You've never really done that with Jane. So just open the spaces more for everyone. Everyone who meets the criteria of being able to do the job well. And then when you have opportunities promote, promote those even who may think differently than you or look differently than you. Because truly, I've found in business the best or room is the most. diverse. Yeah. And I'm completely with you on that. I learned that earlier. And my best teams, no one look like me. And it's so important, whether it's your physical look, but it's also your education, all these different, where they're from, what country, I just think you can really, it just does something to the team effect. I don't know how to describe it. That just makes everyone better and the teams are just phenomenal. So what's one thing your parents? Your parents sound like pretty cool people. What's one thing your parents made you do as a kid and you maybe rolled your eyes a little bit, but now looking back, you're like, no, I'm glad they did that.

So the one thing I would say is travel. My parents used to, so we grew up in Cleveland. We used to spend our summers in D.C. before it was hip. We also would spend summers like in Newark, New Jersey and in Virginia. We typically took family trips, sometimes overseas. because they really wanted us to, one, appreciate America and the culture and the benefits we do have for just having to be born in this country and to understand the other perspectives when people come from different environments and have different exposures, what they say, what they do, their work ethic, how that can also interplay. And so I would really, I'm very thankful that at an early age, I learn the importance of traveling the world. Yeah, that's a great one.

And Jennifer, what about times when you feel a little bit drained? So you're a mother, wife, surgeon, been a CEO, now have an equally important, high-stress sort of role, seeing patients, all the different hats that you wear. What do you do to sort of recharge? So I like to walk. And that it sounds like old. Like it's true, I like to be outdoors and walk. And I also like, I like real estate. I like, it's not really like the rehabbing,

but the idea of making a change for two things. One, I feel like housing is so important. I just feel like we have such an issue. We have such an abundance here in the States, but we have such a homeless issue for so many reasons that are complicated, so social, economically and mental health. But to be able to provide housing for a family and just the thank you, it's a different type of thank you than in medicine. We do some short-term rentals and to realize that we were part of someone's like family vacation that they'll always remember.

It's just, it's the gratitude. And I like putting things together. And, you know, it's like surgery on a building. It's the same. That's awesome. Wow, we covered a lot of ground. We talked about some new songs, new records we're going to put on our playlist. We talked about the life message, you know, which is if people tell you who they are, believe them.

And the reasons why you came to that. We talked a lot about your growing up in Cleveland. Yeah, Cleveland rocks. And then your life, your husband being the basketball coach and your three kids and then your career and all the different roles that you had and sort of the key attributes and the skills that were required that you continue to hone and develop and lead with. And then we talked about, you know, just wrapping up with, again, back to the parents. and this emphasis on travel and then how you sort of do some self-care and take care of yourself with walking, things like that.

What did we miss, or is there anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word. I would really want to emphasize, we need to live our lives, right? To the folks. Yeah. I mean, I'm 50 years old now. We've had some recent deaths and friends and family.

And you kind of recognize, you know what, you're not guaranteed another day. do what you want, when you want, live it to the fullest. Try something. If it doesn't work out, try something else. It doesn't really matter. We're not going to be judged by our failures because you have to fail to succeed because you have to at least try. So I would say, live your life and try. The wisdom of Dr. Jennifer Miles Thomas. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for listening to Digital Voices. We help today's

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