Building A Smarter Surgical Step with Pediatric Neurosurgeon Dr. Jennifer Quon

Episode details:Dr. Jennifer Quon is a pediatric neurosurgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. She is also the Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Smartstep Surgical LLC. Dr. Quon completed medical school at Yale School of Medicine and neurosurgical training at Stanford Hospital. She did her pediatric neurosurgery fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children prior to starting as faculty. Dr. Quon has broad clinical interests in pediatric neurosurgery, with expertise in skull base brain tumors, vascular disorders and fetal surgery. Her research program focuses machine learning applications in pediatric neurosurgery and neuroimaging, and surgical innovation. In this episode Dr. Quon:- Shares the challenges she faced using standing stools/steps in the operating room which in turn, inspired her ergonomics and innovation journey- Discusses how she started her innovation journey by thinking about what features she would want an ideal step stool to have- Explains that Surgistep is a motorized surgical stool/step which can adjust height in 1mm increments using a scissor-lift mechanism and allows surgeons the ability to make adjustments without asking other team members to stack steps  https://www.smartstepsurgical.com/collections/surgistep- Elaborates on the various steps during her innovation journey i.e. background research, finding a partner familiar with devices, meeting with engineers, raising funding, getting additional partners, making a prototype and learning legal and regulatory requirements- Shares some of the frustrations during her innovator journey including the timelines being longer than anticipated and getting conflicting feedback to make engineering modifications- Describes the basics of getting funding for aspiring surgeon-innovators- Highlights that she is working on other safety products for the ORYou can reach Dr. Quon directly via email: [email protected] Smart Step Surgical LLC is offering a 20% discount for listeners of the podcast which you can access here: https://www.smartstepsurgical.com/blogs/news/surgical-ergonomic-podcast-promotional-discount- Follow Surgical Ergonomics on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube please reach out to us if you have any suggestions regarding episode ideas and guests or if you'd like to be a guest on the podcastIf you found this episode valuable, please share it with a colleague or your perioperative team to help bring greater awareness to the role of ergonomics in career longevity. If you're enjoying the podcast, I'd be grateful if you left a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your reviews help others discover the show and support our mission of improving the health and longevity of surgeons and proceduralists worldwide.