Notice: Inpatient bedside phones are being phased out at Nova Scotia Health facilities beginning May 31. Please bring a personal device and charging equipment for your hospital stay.
Dr. Kathleen MacEachen arrived on the South Shore three years ago and stepped into a system still recovering from COVID-19 pandemic disruptions. Since that turbulent time, the cardiologist has embarked on rewarding work to help rebuild cardiac rehabilitation and expand heartfailure services. This work is important, she emphasizes, because it keeps people out of hospital.
Born and raised in the Halifax area, Kathleen began her professional life in nursing. “My undergraduate’s actually in nursing,” she explained, adding with a laugh, “and then like a sucker for punishment, I decided to go to med school.”
After completing her degree, internal medicine training and a cardiology fellowship at Dalhousie University, she spent three years in Antigonish before a position opened in Bridgewater, where she’s located now. The move brought her closer to family and offered the kind of support system she and her husband Chris needed while raising two young sons.
Kathleen splits her time between a private clinic on the west side of town and hospital-based work at South Shore Regional Hospital on the east side. Her practice includes heart failure management, cardiac testing, and women’s heart health, areas she has helped expand both in Antigonish and now in Bridgewater.
Her days are a mix of clinic visits, diagnostic testing and high‑acuity care.
A big part of her job is preventing illness before it becomes a crisis. She has delivered public talks on women’s heart health and sees education as a powerful tool. “Keeping people from getting sick in the first place, that’s really rewarding,” she says. “To have people come up and say, ‘I learned a lot from this session’, that’s powerful stuff.”
Kathleen loves working and living in Lunenburg County. She appreciates the inclusiveness of clinical settings in Bridgewater.
“This place feels like family,” she says. “Everybody just knows everybody and gets along well. I go to work and everybody’s just, kind of, supporting each other.”
That collegiality extends beyond daytime hours. “Even in a crisis in the middle of the night, if I call somebody at 2 a.m., they’re like, ‘What do you need? I will be there in a minute.’ It’s next level.”
Outside of work, Kathleen is a devoted mother and an avid athlete. Her family spends winters snowboarding and summers cycling or at the beach. A former competitive downhill cyclist, she now sticks to safer road riding. “It’s a little hazardous for your career,” she says with a chuckle.
As Doctors’ Day (May 1) approaches, she is quick to credit colleagues who have shaped her journey. She highlighted internist Dr. Jeff Ratushny, whom she calls “a mentor and an endless supply of wisdom,” and hospitalist Dr. Allison Freeman, a close friend who encouraged her to move to the South Shore.
Reflecting on her decision to relocate, Kathleen called the region “the best kept secret in Nova Scotia.”
Nova Scotia Health is proud to partner with Doctors Nova Scotia on in-zone activations this Doctors Day. Keep an eye out for pop-ups across the province on-and-around May 1, as we come together to share a heartfelt thanks to Nova Scotia doctors.
Photo of Dr. Kathleen MacEachen.