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PODCAST: Why Jean & Andre quit their jobs as surgeons to start TouchSurgery Copy

OCT 26, 2015

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Former Surgeons Dr Jean Nehme and Dr Andre Chow took a great leap when they decided to start TouchSugery… they talk to Ben Goldsmith about saving lives, working with Stanford, and why young surgeons can’t get into the operating theatre.

01:13 The Doctors explain the genesis of TouchSurgery, which was inspired by real experiences in hospitals. To quote John, “there are moments, as a physician, when you are trying to save someone’s life”

02:50 Jean explains that the best surgeons, due to a lack of experience and training, simply can’t get time in the operating room.

03:30 “We wanted to be the best surgeons that we could be… but the tools hadn’t changed for hundreds of years”

03:52 Surgical training is an apprenticeship, you learn your trade by doing it. To illustrate this point, Andre explains that his first experience of taking out an appendix was on a young boy…

05:00 This ‘apprenticeship’ system used to work, but it’s broken now.

06:20 Surgery has changed inexorably (for the better) thanks to innovation, now training needs to catch up.

07:25 Not only have surgical practices changes, but on-demand services such as Netflix have altered expectation en-masse: surgeons want to train easier and quicker, and patients want a swift way to understand potential procedures.

10:05 Was their ever much push back from the medical industry? “when we go to Stanford of Johns Hopkins, we are welcomed with open arms”

12:30 There is a social/community aspect to TouchSurgery – Jean explains that the ambition of this system isn’t to rank one surgeon against the next, but more to help each individual surgeon get better.

15:41 Unbiased, independent research – published in the world’s leading medical journals – is extremely important to TouchSurgery. Why? “When you’re talking about patient lives… you need to provide levels of evidence that prove that your system works”

18:55 Leadership: The team at TouchSurgery is comprised of experts from many diverse fields – animation, health-care, data science… We ask the Doctors if this level of diversity makes it difficult to craft a company culture?

20:50 The big question: In a perfect world, how will surgery change over the next 5, 10, 15 years?

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