Dr. Omar Dawood: Chief Medical Officer at Calm (Raise the Line)

Hi, I'm Sh Ghani. Thanks for checking out the raise line interview series in which me and my cohost doctor Rishi Desai and registered nurse, Janna Amil, explore how to strengthen our healthcare system with some amazing leaders in medicine, technology, education and government and they have some great advice for people starting careers in healthcare as well.

I hope you will watch these highlights and then go listen to the full podcast interview wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Shu Glan in today on ra the line.

I'm really happy to be joined by Dr Omar Dawood. Dr do is a clinician and stage four cancer survivor with more than 25 years of senior management, medical research and clinical experience with a focus on innovating medical device and digital health products.

As a senior executive, you have a really impressive background. Uh Pen Yale, many other logos uh behind you and you're a cancer survivor.

I would love to hear uh kind of what first got you interested in a career in medicine and then transitioning into leadership roles in digital health companies.

Yeah. Um, you know, I went through a, a difficult experience when I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma uh a couple of days from my 15th birthday and it really a little fired me uh to uh be able to actually bring innovation at the hospital.

Uh I got to see a side of medicine uh that really, to me highlighted the need for better access, uh better quality of care.

Uh And as I said, the ability to bring innovation uh on all fronts uh into the hospital system. So from there, I pursued a career of medicine and um I always followed my passions uh y you know, studied uh in the public health realm uh and got more of a collective view on medicine.

Uh And then after being out in San Francisco and uh in residency training, I really got a, a really good firsthand taste on uh the opportunities to be able to actually apply my clinical expertise and procedure mindset uh into the business world.

Uh And to be able to not just touch patients from a one on one perspective and help them, but actually influence an entire sphere of patients globally.

My last question for you is, is there anything else you'd like to be able to convey to our audience of, you know, current and future healthcare professionals around the world?

Uh While we have you here, I think the last thing is we have all these statistics around mental health. One in five Americans are afflicted with the mental health will be uh afflicted in their lifetime.

And what I just urge everyone uh to think about is what about the other four or 54 out of five that actually experience some level of stress and anxiety and they don't have a labeled condition.

Uh We shouldn't forget about them. It's as important to support every one of us and every one of the patients in front of you uh for a mental behavior, health perspective, even at a subacute uh pre symptom level.

Because then I think we're gonna make a more efficient use of our downstream resources. We're just gonna prepare all of us and entire society uh for any stress and anxiety that's to come.

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