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Michael Thomas Dent (born May 17, 1964) is an American medical doctor and entrepreneur, best known for founding NeoGenomics in 2002. The company is now valued at $2.65 billion. Dent worked for nearly thirty years as a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist in Naples, Florida, during which time he became a serial entrepreneur. His latest venture, HealthLynked, is a healthcare technology company offering a SaaS and cloud-based network for connecting medical patients and providers, as well as healthcare practice optimization systems.

Childhood
Michael Thomas Dent was born on May 17, 1964, to John Marshall Dent and Mary Elizabeth (née Widner) in Macon, Georgia, USA. In the late 1960s, the family moved to Tifton, GA, where John was the first obstetrician. Michael was the third child, following a brother, John Marshall, Jr., and sister, Sandra Elizabeth. John Dent Sr., died after suffering a heart attack in 1974. Elizabeth married Dennis Waters. When Michael was 11, Waters moved the family to Saudi Arabia, where he worked for ARAMCO.

Education
Dent attended public schools in Tifton, GA, through 8th grade. He attended 9th grade while living in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. After returning to the United States, Dent attended 10th grade in his former high school in Georgia. The summer after 10th grade, Dent accompanied Waters to to Sao Paolo with the intention of entering school there, but elected instead to attend the Asheville School for Boys in Asheville, North Carolina. After graduating in 1982, Dent attended Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina for one year before transferring to Davidson College, where he was pre-med.

After post-graduate work at Valdosta State College in Valdosta, GA, Dent moved to Charleston, South Carolina, to work in the MUSC Acute Care Laboratory at the Medical University of South Carolina, where he attended medical school. Dent did his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, where he was named Best Resident by Wyeth Ayerst in 1994. While in residency, Dent met Mary Suarez, a labor and delivery nurse. They married in 1996.

After residency, Dent relocated to Naples, Florida in 1996, where he opened a private practice.

Medical career
Dent specialized in Obstetrics and gynaecology. Upon moving to Naples, Florida, Dent opened a private OB-GYN practice. He later hired other physicians to work for him, but remained active in his field, contributing to articles on OB/GYN topics. His interest in technological advances in medicine led him to become one of the first physicians to be trained in the use of the da Vinci Surgical System created by Intuitive Surgical robotic surgery equipment, and he became a trainer for the company.

NeoGenomics
Dent became interested in DNA testing and study, particularly in the area of cancer research and diagnosis. He launched NeoGenomics with $300,000 in funding from an investment group in Tampa, Florida. Dent was able to build the company quickly an on a shoestring budget. He guided NeoGenomics through its initial state- and national-level laboratory certifications. Today the company is a leader in its field and is valued at $2.65 billion with revenues of $277 million in 2018.

HealthLynked
HealthLynked, founded in 2014, grew from Dent's experiences as a physician in which medical records were not easily accessible transportable or shareable and research was limited to small subject groups. HealthLynked's core business is a cloud-based network that allows the storage and sharing of electronic medical records (EMR), noteworthy because it is independent of commercial systems that do not connect to one another. The company has more than 500,000 patient members and a database of 800,000 healthcare providers that comprise the HealthLynked Network. HealthLynked plans to implement artificial intelligence to manage patient care and do long-term research studies using large-scale anonymous patient data groups. The company also develops medical practice management technologies. In 2019, HealthLynked acquired the Hughes Center for Functional Medicine, formerly the Perlmutter Health Center, founded by celebrity doctor David Perlmutter. HealthLynked renamed the practice the Naples Center for Functional Medicine.