The Rise of Clinician Innovators | Dr. Reena Pande
The Heart of Healthcare | A Digital Health Podcast
Clinical training as preparation for startups
Reena and Michael map skills from residency and fellowship—grit, hours, autonomy—to startup demands.
Many clinicians quietly wonder if there's a “next chapter” beyond the hospital walls, and an increasing number are stepping into health tech roles that didn’t exist a decade ago.
Dr. Reena Pande has lived that shift firsthand: from cardiologist at a top academic center, to early employee and CMO at AbleTo, to now leading clinician executive search at Oxeon. She joins us to unpack what it really takes for clinicians to succeed in startups, why these roles matter more than ever, and how AI is reshaping both medical training and leadership.
We cover:
🩺 What true self-assessment looks like
🚀 What clinicians often misunderstand about joining a Series A startup
🐈 The “indoor cat vs. outdoor cat” model for modern clinical leadership
📉 How to evaluate risk when moving from academic medicine into early-stage companies
📊 Why clinician leaders are central to sales, product, and operations in virtual care
🤖 How AI is reshaping medical expertise and what future clinicians must be trained for
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About our guest:
Dr. Reena Pande is a Partner and leads Oxeon’s Clinician Executive search and leadership practice. She is a physician, entrepreneur, and healthcare executive whose career has focused on building innovative solutions to ensure access to evidence-based, and technology-enabled care. For nearly a decade, Dr. Pande served as Chief Medical Officer at AbleTo, a virtual behavioral health provider. During her tenure, she served as a passionate external voice for bridging the gaps between physical and mental health, and also led clinical product, data science, healthcare economics, and outcomes research teams. Dr. Pande saw the organization through numerous fundraising rounds and eventual acquisition by Optum/UnitedHealth Group.
Prior to her time at AbleTo, Dr. Pande was an academic cardiologist and clinical researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA and was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. She earned her undergraduate degree in Biology from Harvard University, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and a Masters degree in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her internship, residency training, and Cardiology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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📚Want more? Read The Clinician’s Guide to Breaking Into Digital Health
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