Masterclass: Dr Belinda Gray
Ready to see what the future of our industry looks like?
Meet Dr Belinda Gray - clinical naturopath/nutritionist, former Account Manager with global ingredients giant BASF, education with BioCeuticals, clinical researcher, lecturer with Endeavour College and dedicated mum with a busy business consulting practice and clinic - oh, and she has a PhD from the University of Queensland’s School of Medicine that she completed all while working and caring for her family.
In this wide-ranging conversation we talk through the practice of natural medicine in 2020, the role of evidence-based practice in clinical and retail settings, how to make the transition from graduate naturopath into our industry and where we all think the industry is going over the next few years, taking into account the rather unique circumstances of the first half of 2020.
While we discuss the future of the industry, it’s people like Belinda that in our view represent what we can become with the right blend of passion for natural medicine, evidence-based practice, hard work and a desire for excellence.
Transcript follows:
- Excellent, so welcome.
- Thank you.
- Hi Gabe. Hi Belinda. So this industry insight, an industry insight into an expert, we've got Doctor Belinda Gray, following on from our previous one, this is a very exciting talk, we just really wanna get some insight into your background. We know you've walked quite a diverse path over the years, we've just been discussing about it recently actually and it is a very interesting path. We've seen many different touch points in the industry. I think it's a really good place to start, just introduce you a little bit for people who don't know. I'm sure a lot of people have come across you over the years, you're quite connected through the industry. But yeah let's go back to where it all began, so you studied as a naturopath?
- Yeah, I did Advanced Diplomas, Naturopathy, Nutrition and Western Herbal Med. I worked in health food while I was doing that, and then went on to do the Bachelor upgrade after that while working in pharmacy, before I headed towards industry for a little while.
- Yeah, excellent. So from the degree, we were having a bit of a chat before, we'll come around full circle, but in terms of a lot of those students thinking back to that time point where you're just about to get your qualifications and you're thinking well okay what's next? What options are available? Where do I go to from here?
- 'Cause I was working in pharmacy, I actually had my practitioner consultant drive from the Gold Coast to Brisbane to come ask if I wanted to work with BioCeuticals.
- Oh really?
- I hadn't originally planned that. I had thought that I was gonna do clinic like most naturopaths do, but I ended up going to work for them for a few years, 'cause the ability to have a consistent pay package was really nice. So I was there for a couple of years. I'd always wanted to have the opportunity to do post grad 'cause I know there's not a lot of it on offer in our field. And I know it's definitely an area in terms of the scientific stuff where we really want to improve. So when I got the offer to go do my PhD I decided okay back to Brisbane and trot off to go do that.
- And what talk us through--- Sorry you go Gabe. I was gonna say talk us through what was going on in your mind then? You're about to do a PhD, I went through a similar thing. Got offered a PhD, and decided it wasn't for me. I asked a couple of my mentors, and I just decided to go down a different route. But talk us through what was going through your head when you're thinking about the time investment, you're thinking about the possibilities and what the future's gonna hold. Can you take us back to then?
- Look, I've always loved the scientific side of what we do. It frustrated me when a lot of people would say, "oh well it's traditionally been used", like I spent a lot of time with the medical profession when I was working with BioCeuticals, and the lack of evidence that we had on a lot of things was, I found it really sad because it was at the point where okay, well, we can't tell you how Panadol works, and that's okay, but we can't tell you how herb works, and that's not. So for me I really wanted to see a little bit more of that background in our industry and I figured that the buck has to stop somewhere, and that means that some of us go down that road. So it was more than to have a better understanding of it, but also to add to that literature bank as well.
- So you're truly invested because I think like Dane I toyed with the idea of doing a PhD at SCU. Actually had a supervisor, started, and all the rest of it, because I'm as useless as I am, like just juggling work plus a family, which you've done incredibly well, for me that was too much. So I have to say I think you're one of, I would honestly say a handful of naturopaths or natural practitioners in Australia with a PhD.
- There's a few of us, and it's growing. But those who are, we have some amazing practitioners who've gone down that road. The amount that they've sacrificed to do it is phenomenal. I did it without family, so those who've done it, I take my hat off to.
- I think that's exactly the correct word, because I think the sacrifice involved is just phenomenal, like particularly for mums who have kids at home, maybe have a clinical practice, you know, it's incredible. So let's psychoanalyse you for a second, so you're obviously a very intelligent person but what's the motivation to make that sacrifice?
- It didn't feel like a sacrifice to me. Cause at that point I was under 30, I didn't have the family, so it was more a natural part of the career progression for something that I wanted to do, as opposed to a sacrifice per se. Yeah it's another four years of study, but I worked through that as well. So I was really fortunate, I got to work with a research company, as a research assistant through it, and then I was lecturing at Endeavor and then I also worked with a holistic GP in clinic. So I was really, really fortunate. For me it wasn't so much a sacrifice and it really opened up a lot of doors on that front in terms of my ability to interface on what I was doing in the industry. So yes it was a lot of time, and it was a lot of hard work, but it was also fun, I learnt so much. Not just on the technical side of things, but my ability to interpret literature, the contacts that I built up, both in Australia and overseas was phenomenal.
- How did you go about choosing the title of your project, of your thesis? Was that in discussion with your supervisor, or did you just say I want to do this? Or how did you come to the final topic that you investigated?
- I was really lucky my supervisor said throw a couple of things at me that you want. I decided to pick something that was actually going to be prevalent in our society, so I figured obesity, cardiovascular disease was probably the top of that list. And then I had seen little bits and pieces of literature looking at fish oil and obesity, and most people talked about it from an anti-inflammatory perspective, so I did a little bit of research on that. I looked at, okay what could the potential mechanisms be? I did a lot of research around the whole thing of good fats, bad fats, and I'm like okay well what's the likelihood in looking at the difference between someone who's metabolically healthy and someone who's not, how do I then, what's actually causing that difference when for all intents and purposes they're both overweight or obese? So that's kind of how I drew dots to get to where I wanted to go, and it evolved a little bit over time. That's the majority of it. I wanted something that was going to be relevant for the population.
- So you, as Dane said earlier, you've really run the gamut in terms of what can be done with a, let's call it a natural practitioner's career. And putting aside your obvious intellectual capabilities, talent, and hard work, and you've taught thousands of students, what advice would you give a young person coming through, or considering natural medicine as a career, starting on the practitioner front rather than maybe coming in on the commercial side? To build a satisfying livelihood out of it, I guess.
- First and foremost, get an understanding of business. I think one thing the colleges don't do well is teach students business. Like I did, while I was doing my PhD, I did a Grad Cert in Research Commercialisation, which was through the business school at UQ, and the amount of additional stuff I learnt there was amazing. And my dad's background, we had a fairly large family business as well. So by having that additional background it really teaches you to put together a business plan properly, to understand what your value proposition is, to understand what it is you're actually selling, and what makes you different from every other nutritionist out there. Understanding how to network properly and actually sell yourself, as opposed to just sitting there and waiting for your clients to come. It's being prepared to actually go out there and have a go. It's networking with other practitioners to find out what works and what doesn't, as well as to stay up to date, because it is so easy to just lock yourself into your own little world and wonder why it's not working. But without actually going out there to really feel for it, and it's understanding that the practitioner companies they do have a vested interest in what they're giving you in terms of information, so make sure that you are actually capable of reading the information they're giving to you and that you think about it critically yourself. I think those would probably be the top comments that I give to any of the students.
- Do you have many students come to you and say "look I'm a bit unsure about where to go from here? Can you give me a bit of insight or a bit of support?" like does that conversation happen?
- It's come up a few times. It's usually one of the first things that they ask when, 'cause I teach some of the, or have taught some of the fourth year subjects as well as second year subjects. There's usually a typical question of "how did you end up teaching and why did you not just stay in practice, and how did you even get into that?" And then that usually goes to what else can I do, or how do I do it successfully is a big question.
- So let me be a little bit controversial, if you don't mind. I had this sort of deep dark period where I was like 'argh the future of naturopathy, I can't believe four year grads are going into retail and working for $22 an hour. The practitioner business is moving behind the counter and big box pharmacy argh, what's happening argh'. And I went and spent seven years in Asia, sounds like seven years in Tibet, and I've come back with a much more-- no I'm being serious, with a much more pragmatic stance on that, I've got over my sort of purist, I don't know, maybe purist perspective, is that the right word? This is the evolution of the industry, right? So there are segments of our industry that are sold in supermarket shelves, like milk and bread, when they're supposed to be medicines, and I think philosophically I have a little bit of a problem with that, but there are also, you know, on the upside, amazing companies doing highly therapeutic products that are sold by practitioners, right? But there is this, there is absolutely this evolution of the industry behind the counter in pharmacy, to a lesser extent behind the counter in health food, and a move away from-- or online consults for that matter, telemedicine I think is now a real segment of the industry.
- Well I think COVID's made that necessary, right? It's now approved for practitioners to be doing that.
- Totally and I mean if you'd said that to any of us 10 years ago I think we would have laughed you out of the room because like 'oh the regs are going to inhibit it, consumers want the physical interaction with someone, blah blah blah', right? But there is this evolution going on. I do have a point here, by the way. So what's your perspective on you know, the next 10 years of the industry? What is it, maybe from a practitioners perspective, maybe from a brand perspective, I don't really mind.
- From a practitioner's perspective I think we, there needs to be other ways in which we do business besides from just the whole, it's no different to the medical perspective in that a lot of us have kind of headed down that road of a sickness industry. We get paid when our clients are sick. But that's always been one of my pet peeves. It's like okay well what kind of business innovation can we do where we're actually looking at a business model that goes 'how am I supporting my patients to stay well?' And in that also approaching that, what you were talking about before, of that whole thing of clients are picking whatever they want from the shelf without actually having the information behind it to do it properly. So is there a way that we can actually transform our industry to be providing that information more effectively, and keeping our clients healthier to start off with. So I know that our focus as naturopaths and nutritionists, we want it to be preventative medicine, but the reality is most of our patients come to us when they're sick. And they're only prepared to pay for it when they're sick. So I think finding a way around that would be amazing, I think that would do absolute wonders for our practitioners as well as the community in general. In terms of from an industry perspective, where are the brands gonna go with that? I'm not sure to be honest. I think that the reality is that most the brands realise the majority of their money is made in retail. There is a necessity for them to work through things like pharmacy, and I think it's fantastic that the pharmacists and the GPs are actually starting to get on board and understand our industry. But I also think there's a limit to how much they can actually fully understand, and how much they potentially should be prescribing when they don't necessarily know the contraindications and the physiology behind things to the same degree--
- Here's an interesting anecdote. So I walked into a local pharmacy in the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Browsing the shelves, just having a play around with what was on the shelves, right? Smaller pharmacy, not a big box one. Young, Australian Asian guy comes out, the pharmacist, from behind the counter, he says, "oh is there anything I can help you with?" I said look absolutely, I'm looking for something for skin. You know, my partner was having a skin condition or whatever. And he goes, "look I can see you're looking at the topical alternatives but have you considered lactoferrin?" I was like excuse me? And this is a pharmacist right? He pulled out medlab's lactoferrin product. I was like that's actually a really good product. It's got olive leaves, it's got lactoferrin, it's got clinically efficacious doses, and this is a pharmacist talking me through it. And you know I probably haven't spent enough time in Australia in the last seven years to have that experience, but I was totally blown away, like in a positive way. And I said "so what have you done? Have you done some post grad?" He goes, "no, no, no, I'm just really interested." He would have been in his twenties, I'd say. He said, "I'm really, really interested and you know I love natural products." I was like 'what the hell', you know.
- Look some of the pharmacies are like that, and if they, and unfortunately if they are big enough accounts that's the sad part. They get enough time with the practitioner consultants and stuff, from brands to get that education. But they have to be a big enough account, or they have to be prepared to put in the money to go do the seminars and stuff. And it's still through a brand filter. It's not necessarily an entirely holistic view, so you're relying on their ability to interpret the information they provided accurately. But I think it's awesome, and that's kind of where I come back to, wouldn't it be amazing if you had that naturopath on file that was accessible to patients to be able to provide that information from someone who isn't just doing it as an interest topic, but is doing it--
- Little bit agnostic about brands that are recommended. Or had an awareness of brands, but wasn't led into one outcome.
- Like I love the version, have you seen all the PT stuff online where the PTs are doing like online health courses and they'll upload their video of what you're meant to be doing for exercises for the week. And then you've got your Facebook group where they actually moderate it and you can ask quick questions and stuff. But they pay a membership fee for it. I reckon that would be amazing in the nutritional industry and I think you'll probably see a lot of that starting to come out. You see it in different industries already. But I think from nutritional perspective, that outdoes a lot of the people who aren't necessarily qualified to be doing it providing information for our industry.
- Like you say, when you can get legitimate advice as well, you're not just getting advice from an influencer or someone like that. Who sure they might have a good reach, and a good connection point, but are they really providing advice that's gonna help with your health. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But if you can get someone whose got the background in terms of, understanding the credible literature, really there to try and provide good advice, and link all the dots so people get results, could be a good discussion next time one of the students come up and say "Where should I go to from here?" Well, have you considered this business opportunity?
- But it's also the whole thing of someone whose got your medical history, because walking into a pharmacy and asking for something, and I understand the practitioners who whinge about that because there are certain things you would need to know before you go prescribing it. It's like okay here take six fish oil a day, but I'm missing a gall bladder.
- Oh sorry about that.
- No I haven't had any major surgery. So yeah, it is really important. I think there's a lot that can be done for our industry, both from a branding-- from the brand and commercial side of it, as well as the praccy's [practitioner's] doing things differently.
- From your PhD, just to bring it back around, so you finished your PhD, you obviously, you know, worked your butt off for a long time, discovered a lot of new knowledge, went through a clinical trial as well in that time.
- Two.
- Two, yeah okay.
- Two, oh wow.
- What was the experience from the clinical trials like? That's a world that most people don't get exposed to.
- The clinical trials were amazing. I did human clinical trials, so very, very different to working with animals. I was really fortunate, I think a lot of students end up with a whole heap of participants dropping out. I fortunately didn't have any. So that was amazing, I think, going through, I hated statistics, trying to break down the statistics was not my favourite point. And then trying to write up the data and that kind of thing, it was fun. I got a lot out of it, learning how to edit things for journals, and referencing changes between journals was heaps of fun. But I think that was really interesting, but then going back to, so that was the one that I actually did for my PhD, but doing the research assistant work, doing another trial, that was probably more medically orientated, was another eye opener because it was actually seeing the commercial side of it as opposed to like something that was actually going towards what would be an end commercial product, as opposed to what we did, which was more for interest sake and to add to the literature body for the industry. So very different end points, and very different focus throughout in terms of the meetings and what was going on.
- Yeah you see a lot of brands, where they try to, when I've had exposure through it over the years, I'm sure you've seen both sides as well by the sounds of that, but you've got the different approach, is it for the knowledge base? Is it to really try and get to the bottom of the science, or is there an objective where you're trying to get to the end, like is there commercialisation of a particular ingredient or product, the goal behind it?
- It's how do you manage the intellectual property with that kind of thing. If I publish this is it gonna cause me problems? Or okay this is a normal product, but how can I make this unique enough that I own, like that it's owned by a company and stuff? And I found that was fascinating going through it, then going on to work for one of the raw materials suppliers where you actually saw that in practice. And I got to be involved in that process of creating new raw materials, and then how you actually approach that in the industry. It was fascinating to see it from one--
- That translational expertise in terms of okay I've got an omega fatty acid or a botanical, then extraction ratio, concentration ratio in the case of fatty acids, you know price per kilo, price per daily dose, you know all of those calculations. A lot of people don't see that outside of the product development team or the technical teams, right?
- No. Not at all and I think that there's a lot to be said for the information we don't know when we're not exposed to it. When you pick up a product and you see this one looks on paper exactly like that one, what's the difference? Quite often there is a lot more difference than what you would think.
- And I think what surprised Dane and I perhaps in this sort of Take Friday Off adventure, has been that even like really high quality brands, some of the teams don't understand raw materials at all.
- No.
- Like, at all.
- I know from some of the top brands that I've dealt with walking in and you ask them where they get certain materials from and they actually don't know.
- No the manufacturer's done all that for them, that's right.
- Yeah and it's quite scary when you go in and I'm trying to explain to them the difference between a standard fish oil and how they would make a concentrate and what that actually does in terms of removing things at the same time. And I think it's really, really important that we can start to rebuild that within the industry 'cause those brands having ownership of the quality of materials they're buying is super important.
- Not just a price consideration, and even if it is, it's a trade off between "okay maybe I don't have eight ingredients, maybe I have four or five quality ingredients that I can do traceability on, that I have heavy metals analysis on, that meet the definition of a herbal ingredient."
- Really, that's important?
- Who would have thought?
- I think back to your comment earlier, I think that is a big thing that's a future of the industry for brands, is really taking more ownership of this type of stuff, really getting to the ground source in terms of where it's come from, what's the supply chain, what's the different steps, how long have the ingredients been stored for, the finer details in terms of what really matters, and brands taking a bit more ownership on that to make sure the end product's exactly what they think it is, and their consumers are therefore likely to get consistent and reliable results.
- Their brand is really, really important to them and the reality is if you've got products that aren't working, it's not gonna get them very far, and it only takes one hiccup in terms of the wrong material going into a product to do a lot of damage, not just to that brand but to the industry. We saw a lot of that happening with the infant formula industry in China, and I think it probably scared a lot of the supplements manufacturers here in terms of how do they actually protect their brand and because of that they're starting to go "okay well what do I need to know, and how do I better do that?"
- No, exactly.
- Conscious of Belinda's time, coming up to the 30, I think. Go ahead Dane.
- I was just gonna say, wanted to ask a quick question about inside the raw material. You were with BASF for a number of years there, that's again an area of the industry that a lot of people don't really get exposure to. So yeah, I'm just interested in how that was for you? What you found interesting and intriguing, and what you took away and could share with the community on working inside a raw materials supplier?
- I think I got a much better understanding of what goes on, not just within Australia but also overseas as well. In different areas of Asia, in different areas of the world. I got to see a lot more of the market trends and how they differed in different countries depending on everything from supply chain, to availability, to the culture itself. In terms of understanding the supply chains of when things arrived and when they didn't, and what happened if there were ships that were running late. I had a lot of fun with that. I got a lot more of the understanding of the regulatory side of things for if there were hiccups with manufacturing, how they were corrected, how they impacted the customer. And also how to safeguard the customers from the whole thing of, okay well when they're looking at raw materials, how are they actually stocked, how are they supplied, how do you tie that in with the expiry dates and stuff on the product, and look after them better, I think, in that regard to make sure that they could then protect their own product, while also ensuring the shelf life of it. I found that really fascinating and then I guess balancing that with the commercial aspect of what's the cost of if you want to keep stock locally, versus flying it in, versus-- it was a really good balance I think, and then understanding how all the different brands actually worked, what they valued, where they placed their priorities and working with them to support that. It's fascinating, I love, the industry is so complex and it's just brilliant to see how people have evolved, and how it's evolving over time.
- Yeah interesting. It makes me think it's like a fine meal, when you go out to a nice Italian or French restaurant, or somewhere like that. It's really the quality of the starting ingredients that creates the, you know, the quality of the meal, and it's no different when it comes to supplements. It's making sure that those ingredients are of a higher quality all the way from the initial steps to the end product.
- Yeah.
- I like that analogy, that's good.
- Okay well we better let you go, we know you've got a family, a recently new addition to the family, so congratulations and thanks for taking the time today and sharing it with the wider community. It's a really interesting story and journey you've been on, and we appreciate you taking the time. It's been extremely valuable.
- Thank guys, all the best.
- Thanks, bye.
