Dr. Breanne Everett (’02): From Loran Scholar to Surgeon Entrepreneur
As a celebration of the Loran Scholars Foundation’s core values of character, service, and leadership, and its challenge to scholars to take meaningful risks in service of others, we have asked members of our community to reflect on meaningful risks and what constitutes #RisksForGood. Dr. Breanne Everett (’02) submitted the following reflection as part of the series.
Dr. Breanne Everett, MD, MBA
CEO and President and Co-founder, Orpyx Medical Technologies Inc.
CEO and Co-founder, Kinetyx Sciences Inc.
Resident physician, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Calgary
In high school, I stumbled upon the Loran Scholars Foundation after seeing a poster on the wall. I asked my guidance counsellor about it, but was told not to apply because there were few awards available in the country and I “would never get it.” I still felt it was worth a try, so I applied.
As I went through the application, I continued to remember what the guidance counsellor said. I had to fill in my parents’ occupations. They weren’t doctors, lawyers or academics. I was never athletic and I had no awards. There were big, blank sections on my application. What I loved, I had doubled down on but my application looked patchy and incomplete. I submitted it nonetheless.
Throughout my childhood, and right up until the point I received that life-changing call that I was receiving a Loran Award, I truly never thought I would be someone to receive this or any other significant scholarship. I didn’t tick the boxes. Years later, I realized it was my variance from what I perceived as being a predefined list of requirements that is exactly why I was selected as a Loran Scholar.
I have always been an entrepreneur at heart and was always really interested in the business world. My upbringing was creatively and artistically focused, and my parents were always very entrepreneurial. The focus for me and my two siblings was never on prioritizing a lucrative career, and always squarely on doing what made us happy. My parents never questioned what I loved to do. They recognized our passions and were absolutely supportive of whatever those happened to be.
As children, my siblings and I would try to sell anything we possibly could and would set up a booth to sell painted rocks. Then came the lemonade stand which involved supply chain management totally outsourced to our parents (who would do multiple Costco runs to replenish stock). Around that time, my aunt bought me a book called Fast Cash for Kids. I was so interested in finding ways to deliver a product that people wanted while creating financial freedom for myself.
When I was eight, my parents bought me a beaded jewelry kit for Christmas. In retrospect, I think this was thought to be a fun hobby for me to create some pieces for fun — for myself, for my family. But all I saw was a business opportunity. My mom was an artisan, always making floral arrangements and wicker furniture. I would go to art sales with her and set up my jewelry booth alongside her and it grew from there.
I started to expand my skill set. I loved the build — of both the jewelry and the business. When I was nine, I took a silversmithing course. With my expanded “line” of jewelry, I was approached by the wardrobe designer at CBC’s North of 60, as well as several made-for-TV movies. She hired me on an ongoing basis to create jewelry for those shows. They would order 2–3 pieces of everything because they need continuity on the set in the event a piece gets lost. That doubled and tripled my orders.
I loved the jewelry and business world, but always saw this as a hobby. I was very interested in science and medicine, and it was probably in middle school or early high school when I first committed to being a doctor. I always felt that those two worlds needed to be separate. I told myself that medicine was my career, but I would always balance this with something more artistic on the side.
After applying to become a Loran Scholar and going through the full selection and interview process, I received an unexpected call one Saturday morning. “You are a recipient of the Loran Award.” I remember feeling shocked, short of breath, trying to contextualize the huge impact I knew this would have on my life.
Being a Loran Scholar did just that — it has changed my life. I was able to pursue my passion for science at McGill University. Before this, I never had a good sense of how I was going to be able to finance my education and the Loran award opened up a world of opportunities to me that I never imagined for myself. After undergrad, I pursued medical school at the University of Calgary, where I gained a better understanding of what careers were available and that there were opportunities to converge my two worlds of science and art. I became passionate about plastic and reconstructive surgery: I loved working with my hands (like I always did as a child) and I could use my creative side by bringing a suite of potential surgical techniques to very unique reconstructive scenarios. It seemed to have it all for me.
After medical school, I started my residency in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Research was a priority, and in the context of identifying a project, I became really intrigued by the design and development of medical devices. I had been reading about the use of sensory substitution technologies in people who are blind, where a person could take in visual information and transpose that sensation onto another part of their body. At the time, there were no widely successful devices in the area. Devices had been designed, developed and prototype phases tested with early promising results, but nothing had really made it to the mainstream.
As a physician, you are always looking at ways that patient care and delivery can be improved. Within plastics, one of those areas was the care of people with diabetic foot disease. I drew a parallel between the use of sensory substitution for people who are blind and started having some ideas around the potential use of that sensory-based technology to improve the lives of people living with diabetes who have lost feeling in their feet. This was a highly prevalent condition — one that affects many people living with diabetes — and one with devastating consequences. One in four people with diabetes will develop foot wounds, and one in five of these wounds will go on to require amputation. Loss of limb and loss of life is tremendously detrimental to the quality and quantity of life, and there were no solutions to proactively address this problem.
I approached my residency research director proposing to develop a medical device as my research project, thinking that I could just do this alongside my residency program. I was strongly encouraged by my mentors, including the program and residency directors, to not view this as just a research project but to start a company. At the time, the culture of medicine was that it was a discipline that was distinct from business and innovation. It did not seem feasible — or acceptable — to improve patient care while making a profit.
After my jewelry business, I assumed that I wouldn’t be pursuing entrepreneurship again, but I ended up taking the advice of my mentors and taking the plunge to start the company. It was clear that if I wanted to get the technology into the shoes of people who needed it, there needed to be a company with a dedicated focus on developing and translating knowledge while utilizing the academic world for research.
My immediate friends and family were all very supportive, as was my residency program. I started being introduced to people within the local ecosystem in medical device development and consumer electronics development. I didn’t really have any examples of other people who had gone through this before which made it challenging. At that time, wireless or Bluetooth technology were not widely used. I considered the possibility of a wired system which, in retrospect, would never work. The basic concept was to collect sensory data from the foot and somehow provide that direct feedback to the patient or healthcare provider. That feedback would be action-based to alter the behaviour of people living with diabetes and prevent diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
The company was incorporated in May 2010 and, for over a year, I tried to balance running a startup, getting the foundational team and intellectual property in place, all while completing a surgical residency. I realized that it was actually impossible to do all this well. In 2011, I decided to take a step away from my residency to complete an MBA (as I had no formal training in business). I learned a ton from the program and from my colleagues experienced in business.
I expected to sell the company and go back to my residency to focus on being a surgeon, but the company needed to be supported and it needed to grow. From 2013 onward, I’ve been on a leave from my residency and have continued to grow the company to where it is today.
So, that was how I accidentally started a company. Throughout this entire initiative, I’ve had to learn on the spot for absolutely everything from figuring out how to start a company, run a company, develop an idea, develop a product and grow a team. By dedicating my career to bringing medical innovations to the clinical world, I ended up being truer to my creative side than I expected.
Alongside all of this, I have stayed actively involved in the Loran community. I have gone back, year over year, to help with the selection process. I have reviewed hundreds of applications, and I have seen the process from the other side.I see now that the assessors see what is there, not what is missing. The application is not about checking a bunch of boxes or filling in all the white space on the page. The application is actually your opportunity to paint a picture of who you are, what motivates you, and why you have this unique and burning desire to find your niche, to pave a path and make a difference. It is about you, it is not about anyone else who is applying. It is not about having all of the resources but it is about what you have done with the resources you had.
Don’t cast doubt on the fire that you know burns deep within. Whether you receive an award or not, that tenacity, resiliency and trueness to what makes you you is what will transcend any award, scholarship, and even misguided advice.
Find your impact by being true to you.
