We meet Dr. Therese Canares today, an extraordinary physician and entrepreneur.  Not only will she tell us about her current practice, but she will also explain how her medical career helped her pivot into a new role as the founder of an innovative AI product. She will demonstrate for listeners what is possible when motivation and great organizational skills come together.

Therese is a pediatric emergency physician, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the founder and CEO of CurieDx, a new and exciting concept she is developing. But first, let’s learn a little about her background.

Therese was raised by a single mother who came to the U.S. from the Philippines. She credits both her mother and an aunt for providing lifelong inspiration.  They taught her a strong work ethic and the importance of achieving good grades.  Her mother, an architect and engineer, and her aunt, a physician, were the influential role models then who made sure she always had the support and guidance she needed. Their influence led her to choose medicine as her first career.

Therese was a biology major as an undergrad at Penn State University.  After finishing in 2003, she took a year off before starting med school. She made the decision to defer because her boyfriend, now husband, survived the 9/11 attack on the twin towers in New York City. The time felt too traumatic to her to begin medical school studies, but she found other work to occupy her that was significant and would help her when she was able to return to academics. 

Therese went to work in the lab of Dr. Henry Pollack, a pediatric infectious disease specialist.  While there, she assisted with his research.  The work was worthwhile and cemented her commitment to pediatrics. That experience was also helpful for her as she planned to resume her medical school application.  

After acceptance at NYU, she spent nearly 10 years in preparation to become a physician.  She is currently at Johns Hopkins where she sees patients, teaches and continues research work.  She and her husband have two children, and as you will hear, she gives her husband much credit for being a true equal partner, and without whom, she would be unable to follow the career path that she has chosen. 

So certainly Dr. Canares leads a busy life.  But like many other people doing complicated daily work, she saw possibilities and opportunities others might not recognize or consider. As a pediatrician and parent, this happened to Therese.  She realized there were times as a busy parent her child needed to be diagnosed by her own doctor, but it seemed difficult to get to the doctor’s office when the need would arise.  Sometimes it was in the middle of the night.  Sometimes either she or her husband would have to squeeze the time from within their frequently long work schedules. And it seemed most times the needed visit was on very short notice.  Therese began to think about how to help solve this universal problem.  In doing so, she came up with CurieDx.

CurieDx is a software platform which offers point of care medical tests from a picture you send from your cell phone.  But how did Therese get from her concept to a functioning website?  Although obviously capable in many ways, tackling the inception of an AI software platform was not something she thought she could successfully do with the skill set she had at the time.  But she felt passionately about her idea, and with the support of her husband, she decided to go back to school for an MBA so she could acquire the knowledge she knew she would need to move forward.

You will hear her describe to Amy some of the many hurdles that came her way including gender bias, but in the end, she achieved her degree. She found a variety of benefits in the program, all of which gave her the knowledge and confidence she needed to move forward on her start up company. In her final month before completing the MBA program, she and her team took first prize in the Johns Hopkins Business Plan Competition. The prize has provided some seed money to get her idea going.   She explains her next step is to build the product and test the algorithms. With success there, she’ll need to raise more funds. Her ultimate goal is to make her product available to every telehealth company that can use it. 

What has she enjoyed about starting her own business? She tells us it’s the “start to finish aspect” or closure that is achieved as she sees things through. She also likes the ability to think creatively while bringing organization to the chaos.  All in all, she is happy with her additional yet very busy career. Dr. Therese Canares is a model to follow for those overachievers out there.  She has la ot of irons in the fire and is thriving. 

Here are some takeaways from her story today:

• Early influences are often the most important
• You are capable of more than you think and your talents can take you in more than one direction
• Biases are a reality. Choose how to deal with them before you encounter them so you can stay on track
• Self-care is vital to multitaskers and overlooking it can derail you
• A supportive partner makes all the difference

 

Links:

• Therese (Waltz) Canares, MD | LinkedIn
• curiedx.com