About

Dr. Kevin Spencer is a medical doctor, mechanical engineer, and entrepreneur from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.  Dr. Spencer’s clinical practice includes work as an Emergency Department Physician at Dartmouth General Hospital (where he also served as the founding Director of Simulation Education at Dartmouth General from 2015-2020), work with Emergency Health Services (EHS) as a MCCP Physician for our Provincial Paramedic service, a role that offers clinical and operational support for all ground EHS assets in the Province of Nova Scotia, and he also provided civilian-contractor based Primary and Urgent Care medical services to Canadian Forces Military Personnel. Dr. Spencer holds an academic appointment as Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine with the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine,

A typical day in the emergency department involves multitasking and troubleshooting in order to deal with a wide range of illnesses, injuries, and crisis situations. Calculated decisions often need to be made rapidly and with limited information.

Dr. Spencer is President, CEO, and co-founder of Ring Rescue Inc., an award-winning medical device company that invented and patented a suite of products for managing Stuck Rings, a common worldwide problem. Hundreds of millions of people wear rings every day, fingers can swell for many reasons, and stuck rings are a common problem that can become a medical emergency. The Ring Rescue Compression Device helps remove rings stuck from swollen fingers non-destructively (without ring cutting or ring damage) when feasible, which is great for sentimental and expensive rings. The Ring Rescue Dolphin Ring Cutter is capable of cutting even the most challenging ring materials (such as Titanium and Tungsten), and has greatly improved safety characteristics over prior tools that professionals have used in the past, significantly elevating the standard of care. Ring Rescue products have reached international markets in the Medical, Fire/Rescue, and Jewelry industries. Ring Rescue has been featured on several media outlets, including CBC’s Dragons Den, CBC’s As it Happens, CBC News, Global News, and Medgadget.

Dr. Spencer is also founder and President of KDS Medical Engineering Inc., a Biotechnology startup company based out of Nova Scotia that designs medical devices and equipment, and also offers consulting services to medical, engineering, and space industries. Through KDS Medical Engineering, we created the Division of Innovation for Space Health, which entered the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) accelerator and later became a dedicated Space Health company named Leap Biosystems Inc., which has experts from across Canada striving to innovate the next-generation medical technologies and astronaut medical training platforms needed to support upcoming human space exploration initiatives. Dr. Spencer was the original President of Leap Biosystems, with it’s current CEO being Dr. Dave Williams (a medical doctor and Former Canadian Astronaut).

Dr. Spencer completed medical school at Dalhousie University in 2009, Family Medicine Residency at the University of Ottawa in 2011, and holds the CCFP(EM) Certificate in Emergency Medicine.  Prior to medical school, Dr. Spencer completed EMT-P training in Pittsburgh, and also worked as an Advanced Care Paramedic with EHS during medical school.

Dr. Spencer completed a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Nova Scotia in 2000 and is a registered Professional Engineer (P.Eng) in Nova Scotia.  Broad engineering work experiences include Medical Devices, Offshore Oil & Gas, Telecommunications, and Fiber Optics, with companies ranging from startups to large corporations. 

Dr. Spencer was also one of 72 finalists in the 2016/2017 Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Recruitment Campaign, an application process that started in the summer of 2016 with 3772 initial applicants, for 2 Astronaut positions that were filled in the summer of 2017.

Dr. Spencer's recreational interests include outdoor adventure pursuits, such as surfing, windsurfing, hiking, skiing and snowboarding, and a recreational pursuit of mixed martial arts. Outdoor highlights include completing treks to Mount Everest Base Camp and around the 220km Annapurna Circuit in Nepal.