Center for Surgical Innovation

At the Center for Surgical Innovation (CSI), our top priority is to promote innovative thinking amongst surgical faculty and trainees, as well as the skill sets to commercialize these ideas in the future. We provide the infrastructure and resources to help faculty innovators move from ideation to implementation. In addition to working on research projects with faculty members with specific expertise in innovation, trainees will develop skill sets to advance independent projects. We have created courses around surgical innovation and entrepreneurship that have become a national model for its reach and results.

We aim to support:

• Learning across all levels, from medical students to senior faculty, including a formal curriculum for medical student education in innovation.
• A focus on teamwork within entrepreneurship, including a 6-month course for surgical faculty and trainees to develop novel early-stage medical solutions.
• Partnerships with faculty in business and biomedical engineering, fostering relationships to solve medical problems together and bring new products to market.

The Center for Surgical Innovation is composed of many different innovators and entrepreneurs from across Michigan Medicine and the University of Michigan main campus. We focus on bringing cutting edge solutions to clinical care, research, and education with an emphasis on thinking outside the box.

The center has been a leader in working with faculty and students to use extended reality technology for various research, education, and clinical applications. We are members of the nation's first Mixed Innovations in eXtended Reality (MIXR) research center, supported by the National Science Foundation's Industry-University Collaborative Research Center program as well as industry sponsors such as the FDA, Microsoft, and Sony. The goal of the MIXR center is to improve medical training, patient management and health care outcomes across all areas of clinical practice using extended reality technology.

Through hands-on experiences in providing clinical and surgical care, trainees and faculty members can work with the CSI to identify existing limitations and needs to enhance the patient experience and improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery. We developed the Michigan Surgical Innovation Accelerator program to guide surgeons and trainees looking to bring new products to the market. Strong connections exist between the CSI, the School of Engineering, the Ross School of Business, and others all work together to support collaborative and multidisciplinary innovation efforts. The CSI works to build an ever-evolving support system and collaboration community for innovators in the field of surgery.