Waterloo Engineering alum Doug Kavanagh (BSE ’06, software engineering) is the medical director of OceanMD, a health-tech company he co-founded in 2012 to improve clinical workflows. Today, more than 50,000 health-care professionals across Canada use the company’s platform.
Kavanagh was part of the Faculty’s inaugural software engineering cohort. He then went on to complete his medical training with the goal of developing tools to better connect health-care patients and practitioners.
Throughout his career, Waterloo’s unique blend of rigorous academics and experiential learning has remained central. Kavanagh points to the co-op program as a “humbling and formative experience” that taught him to build solutions that work in the real world and to collaborate with talented peers — many of whom later became colleagues.
His co-op work term in his family’s health-tech business tested his problem-solving skills and deepened his interest in health care.
“I am grateful for the lessons I gained from watching my parents build a health-tech company and for the co-op and academic experiences that shaped my time at Waterloo,” Kavanagh says. “Together, they set me on a path where I can contribute as both a physician and a builder of tools that help improve care.
Go to From Waterloo undergrad to doctor and health-tech leader for the full story.