Frank Talks: Ways to Impact Patient Care Without an MD

Ways to Impact Patient Care Without an MD

Perspectives from an R&D engineer, start-up CEO and venture capitalist

Featuring Kate Garrett '06

A fortuitous summer internship after sophomore year led Kate Garrett to commit her career to working in the medical device sector. Post graduation she joined a start-up as an R&D engineer and quickly found herself traveling internationally for human clinical work to see the impact of medical technologies first hand.  A fellowship at Stanford then led her to found her own company, taking an idea from whiteboard concept to commercial product and ultimately negotiating an acquisition with executives of a $1B company. Today Kate teaches medical innovation at the Stanford Biodesign Center and invests in early stage medical device companies. 

In this talk, Kate shares more about the ways you can make a difference in patient lives without being a doctor – as an engineer, business person and investor. 

About Kate

Kate is a Managing Partner at Sonder Capital and Assistant Director of the Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship. Prior to Sonder Capital she was CEO of Ciel Medical, which she co-founded out of the Biodesign Innovation Fellowship. Ciel focused on the need to reduce Ventilator Acquired Pneumonia a problem which costs the US healthcare system billions of dollars annually. Ciel was acquired by Vyaire Medical in 2017, and Kate transitioned to Vice President of Airway Technologies at Vyaire. Previously, she was a strategic marketing consultant at Acclarent and an R&D engineer at Pathway Medical. Kate has co-authored over a dozen patents and has received multiple honorary fellowships including being one of the first recipients of the Ferolyn Fellowship. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Olin College of Engineering.