Dr. Loleta Robinson will tell you she got into medicine for a simple reason: she wanted to help people.
But somewhere between the exam room and the billing department, between diagnosis and treatment, she kept running into the same problem. The system itself was getting in the way.
"Early on, helping people looked like being present for patients, one at a time," she explains. "But the longer I was in it, the more I saw how much the system prevents good care."
That realization didn't happen all at once. It accumulated in small frustrations and bureaucratic absurdities until one patient made it impossible to ignore.
The Disappearance
During her training, Dr. Robinson had a patient who lost her insurance mid-treatment.
"She just disappeared from our schedule," Dr. Robinson recalls, and you can hear the weight of it in her voice. "Not because she was better, but because she couldn't afford to keep coming."
It was the kind of moment that could break you or reshape you. For Dr. Robinson, it became a gut-punch reminder that clinical excellence means nothing if the system makes care inaccessible.
"No matter how good we are as physicians, we're still working inside a system that fails people every day," she says. "I could've let that make me cynical, but instead it lit a fire."
That fire changed the trajectory of her career. The questions shifted from "How do I treat this patient?" to "Why is it so hard for them to get care in the first place?"
From Bedside to Boardroom
Today, Dr. Robinson is the founder of Fortis Industries LLC, a consulting firm that tackles healthcare systems, emergency preparedness, and the unglamorous work of making things actually function when lives depend on it.
It's not the path she originally envisioned, but it's where her medical training found its greatest leverage.
"Being a physician entrepreneur means I get to apply everything I learned as a physician to build something bigger," she explains. "I'm still problem-solving, still trying to make a difference. It's about asking 'What if we did this differently?' and then actually doing something about it."
Her work has taken her from hospitals to biotech companies to public health agencies. Along the way, she earned an MBA in Health Administration from University of Colorado–Denver to complement her M.D. from University of Kansas School of Medicine, arming herself with the business language needed to change systems, not just navigate them.
The Work of Shaking Things Up
Dr. Robinson's approach blends clinical insight with business strategy, but her north star remains deeply human: healthcare should be smarter, fairer, and more responsive to the people it serves.
"I want to see a system that actually prevents illness, rather than just reacting to it," she says. "One that treats everyone fairly and actually listens to patients, providers, and the people doing the work on the ground."
It's an ambitious vision, but she believes the next generation of healthcare professionals has a real shot at making it happen.
Her advice to them is both encouraging and unflinching.
For Those Just Starting Out
"Stay curious. Stay open. And hold onto why you started," Dr. Robinson urges. "Healthcare is going to challenge you—it'll test your patience, your ideals, maybe even your sanity."
But she's quick to add that those challenges are precisely what create opportunity for change.
"The people who make a real difference are those who keep asking 'why' and aren't afraid to try something different when the old way isn't working."
And for those who discover their impact might be greater outside the traditional clinical setting?
"Don't be afraid to make that pivot," she says. "Sometimes shaking things up is exactly what's needed."
Real Change Comes from the Inside Out
There's a thread connecting that patient who disappeared from the schedule to the work Dr. Robinson does now: a refusal to accept that broken systems are inevitable.
"Real change doesn't come from the top down," she insists. "It comes from people who care enough to rebuild it from the inside out."
For Dr. Robinson, that rebuilding work requires both heart and innovation. It means holding onto the empathy that drew you into healthcare while developing the strategic tools to fix what's broken.
It's not easy work. The current health system resists change at every turn. But as Dr. Robinson has learned, the hardest moments—the patients who slip through the cracks—aren't reasons to give up. They're reasons to build something better.
And sometimes, helping people means stepping outside the exam room to fix what's happening around it.
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