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Abstract
Medical innovation is the application of scientific knowledge and problem solving for the betterment of the human condition. Every great advancement in the field of neurosurgery can be traced back to a novel surgical procedure or technology that challenged existing standards of care. Considering the critical importance of innovation to the advancement of neurosurgery, and a surprising lack of formal training in innovation among residency programs, we sought to create a residency training program in neurosurgical innovation. Neurosurgery residents at the authors’ institution envisioned the creation of a program that contained all the necessary equipment, personnel, and information required to bring their ideas from theoretical concepts to functional devices implemented in a clinical setting. The Barrow Innovation Center was established as a result. The center currently comprises a rapid prototyping laboratory and several collaborative partnerships between neurosurgery residents, patent law students, and biomedical engineering students. The creation of this model was guided by an overarching mission to educate the next generation of neurosurgical innovators. With modest start-up capital and strong faculty and institutional support, the center has grown from a simple idea to a multistate, multidisciplinary collaboration in just 18 months; it has generated substantial intellectual property, educational opportunities, and a new business entity. We hope that by continuing to advance the Barrow Innovation Center and its core mission of innovation education, we will advance the field of neurosurgery by providing the next generation of surgeon-scientists with the skills, knowledge, and opportunity needed to revolutionize the field.
Highlights
From the first craniotomies performed with stone tools during the Neolithic Era to Cushing and Bovie’s development of electrocautery to the introduction of the operating microscope and microsurgical instruments, the field of neurosurgery has been a catalyst for collaborative advances in surgical and engineering technologies [1,2,3,4]
We have provided practical training opportunities to more than 10 patent law students and more than 50 biomedical engineering students, and we have placed neurosurgery residents as formal university mentors for 10 separate senior engineering program theses
The process of innovation is difficult in large part because it requires the grace and humility to acknowledge the shortcomings of our profession, and the bravery to bring new ideas, devices, and methods to our patients
Summary
From the first craniotomies performed with stone tools during the Neolithic Era to Cushing and Bovie’s development of electrocautery to the introduction of the operating microscope and microsurgical instruments, the field of neurosurgery has been a catalyst for collaborative advances in surgical and engineering technologies [1,2,3,4]. Such collaboration has, in turn, advanced the neurosurgeon’s ability to treat patients with diseases once thought to be untreatable. Innovation is at the core of what it means to be a physician, and especially a neurosurgeon
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