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Nwanyinma Dike
Well, everyone, welcome to the Atlanta StartUp Podcast. I am Nwanyinma Dike, the Managing Director of Startup Runway, the leading platform linking underrepresented founders to their first investors. Today, I am so excited to have Lauren Siff, she is the founder of SurgicalEd VR, and SurgicalEd VR offers immersive VR based surgical training that enhances traditional methods. And she’s going to spend a little time and share a much better, deeper explanation of what SurgicalEd VR is. But I’m particularly excited about having Lauren on because she was the winner of our first Startup Runway Virginia Showcase in Richmond, and so I would now like to thank Lauren. Thank you for joining us today.
Lauren Siff
Thank you and thank you for running this amazing organization. I’m thrilled to be here with you today.
Nwanyinma Dike
Let’s go ahead and kick it off. So like I alluded to, can you tell us a little bit more about SurgicalEd VR and the problem you’re specifically aiming to solve?
Lauren Siff
Yes. So, we are working on creating a surgical training platform. The goal is to train the hands of surgeons using haptic technology and virtual reality in order to allow you to get the real feel for surgery without having to practice on a patient. And that’s really where this idea all came from. And that we’re finally recognizing in surgical training that what we’re doing is essentially practicing on patients. I mean, it sounds terrible when you say it out loud and you don’t even think about it. I’m a practicing surgeon, a urogynecologist. When I started to express what we’re doing outwardly to the public, it really started to ring true to me that we’re admitting that this is how we learn. And I actually have a lot of experience running surgical education for our national societies and a lot of them, and through all of that, I really know that there’s some things you have to learn in the operating room. There are some skills that really you can’t replace that experience. But in my opinion, that place should be sacred. That’s a place where we should prioritize a patient life and also the faculty expertise, and have our learners come in ready for prime time, flatten their learning outside of the operating room and so that’s where this concept came from. You know, I’ll say the first procedure we started with, which is one near and dear to my heart. It’s called sling surgery. It’s to treat urine leakage, but the main point of it is that it’s incredibly common. It’s really effective. I mean, one in nine women have the surgery. But we’re learning it on patients because it’s performed essentially blindly or by feel. So there are many procedures like this, as you talk to surgeons, where you have a target entry, a target exit site, but really everything else, you can’t see what you’re doing. You just go by the feel of your instruments in the tissue, and so this is what I wanted to replicate outside of the operating room, to kind of give you vision to that.
Nwanyinma Dike
And you’re obviously uniquely positioned to solve this problem. As you mentioned, you have your deep clinical experience, the fact that you do this every day, and then, not only do you do it as a practitioner, but you also are part of training other physicians, which is incredible, but I still have to ask. Why did you have to want to go over down this road as an entrepreneur? It’s one thing bringing innovation to the forefront, but it’s another thing to be an entrepreneur. So what drew you to that? How did you find yourself in that space?
Lauren Siff
That is an amazing question, one that I think I sometimes ask myself. It’s funny, I actually grew up as a sidebar. Grew up in a family. My dad owned a small business, a men’s clothing company, and everything that I had happened, any success I had along my education and training, he would always say school uniforms, because I ran the school uniform section of his business. And so, you know, there is such a cross section of the entrepreneurial spirit and really kind of the grit it takes. In order to do that in medical training. So I think that was in my DNA. And then I realized, you know, to your point, I had a problem. I felt like I had a valuable solution that made life more efficient, that was valuable to me, to the trainees, to my patients. I tested it out with everyone I could from novices, medical student level through expert surgeons. And the resounding response was, this is incredible, and we have to have this like this should be trained in every surgical specialty. And so that was kind of the motivation that I needed to make this a business. I ended up actually leaning into an academic at heart. I trained at the Cleveland Clinic, where research is above all, and so I started off with research, and I did a systematic review to look at what is available in our field, and literally, from anything from the lowest fidelity simulation through the highest highest fidelity. And I kept finding that there was very little and what there was, we just kept reinventing the wheel. Every institution creates their own little model. They don’t disseminate it, they present it at a meeting, and that’s kind of where it ends, and then nobody else benefits from that. And so I felt like, with my ability and passion for this, why not give it a try? And then, you know, my why that keep you going? Because certainly, you know it’s not going to that’s doesn’t happen overnight, right? So my why to keep going is I keep reminding myself of the impact that you can have, that I personally can have, and I just put the numbers to it. I was like, let’s, let’s really be entrepreneurial about this. Let me put some numbers. So if I operate as a urogynecologist on my own, doing my own schedule, I end up affecting about 12,000 patient lives in my career that I can naturally extend as I now teach residents and fellows and have a hand in what their patient lives. But then I looked at what we could do if I only, if I trained just urogynecologists alone, the one procedure with my platform, and that already takes me to 10s of millions of patients lives. And then I thought, this isn’t just for slings. This is for all surgery. My colleagues are telling me they want this type of training. What if I did just 10% of all surgeons and now I’m affecting 1 billion patient lives in my career. That’s something that motivates you to continue down the entrepreneurial route when we know it’s that easy.
Nwanyinma Dike
Absolutely. And I love that you frame it that way. I think so much of probably how you’re trained is around thinking about patient impact. But then when you apply that to how we typically do a market sizing, and you know, you go out and you get you do what you can to to entice investors and other folks to to buy into your idea, you are exponentially exploding the impact that you have on patient care and patient lives, and actually hearkening to my own experience. I worked at Merck in pharma, and we were constantly obsessing about the patient. Every decision, would you put this into your mother? Would you put this into your baby? That forward thinking about the patient, I love to hear that, and how you think about your why.
Lauren Siff
That’s so cool.
Nwanyinma Dike
Okay, so here’s my other question. Along similar lines, as you have gone along your development journey and bringing this to market and raising awareness about your tool, what has been some of the feedback you’ve gotten, whether that be from other physicians or from investors or just in general, as you’re talking about this tool, and people look at may or may not be getting getting a chance to use it.
Lauren Siff
So I’m glad we’re meeting today. Just last week, I was at our main conference, where I had the opportunity to present to a wide variety of audience. All those, both with it, who are academic or private practice surgeons, and also the medical device companies, where I see that we have a big impact as well as they try to train surgeons on how to use their devices safely and appropriately. And from all sides, I had incredible feedback. I mean, firstly, in the early stages, just getting hands on feedback .Trainees felt that it was high fidelity. It was clear. It was effective. They loved, you know, they felt like, you know, the haptic tool felt in their hand like it should feel when they touch a bone, it feels like a bone should feel. So that I loved. I then, you know, iterated it more, and I started to get feedback this go round from experts, kind of beta testing, and they are saying 93% of them, so almost every one of them said that they think that their trainees would practice more if they had something like this. They also said that they felt like they could now use this to assess the skill level of their surgeon to make that determination of whether someone should be able to operate on a person or not. And then 100% of them said that they themselves, and these are experts, would use this to learn a new technology, and it’s something we forget, you know, as we think about training, a lot of times, people focus on the residents or fellows or early level trainees who are just starting practice. One of my colleagues, though, said at a presidential address with our societies last year, she said 77% of what I do now, I did not learn in my fellowship or in my training, and she said we need to really learn how to operate. And so I was very intentional about making this something for all levels of people that early level training and experts and all of them have given me that feedback and what I am hearing from. And even more exciting, I think, than all of my colleagues wanting to use this, because there’s a lot of things that we really want to use. 80% of them said my institution would support this. And so you don’t always see that your institution, or at a higher level, they’re going to pay or put their money where their mouth is behind this. And so, you know, I knew, because I reached out to a number of these big academic centers to participate in trials. And everyone I asked, every single one of them, said yes. But now, after this meeting, they all came to me. So 10 new academic sites, new private practices and new companies have come to me to say, we need this. We need to get in on this before anybody else does, so that we can really have it take off. So that’s a good part. It’s good feedback. It’s not over 100% perfect, right? So I’ll take that. I’ll take that. Investors and others always ask me, what you did. They’re like, how do you like, why would I have a doctor run a business, you know, like, how do I know that you can make this happen, and as a physician and you’re practicing and so those are, those are the other end of the feedback. And I think when I explain like, if I can learn to be a doctor in four years, to learn a surgical specialty in three years, I feel super confident that I can learn to run this as a business and surround myself with the right people to join the team towards that effort. So those other things are highly individual training, and this is a team sport, and so overall, I’ve just really had great feedback, and that’s why I keep at it.
Nwanyinma Dike
That’s really good, and that’s a great answer, because it is a team sport. And then, you know, maybe next time, you also throw in your experience of running the school uniform department.
Lauren Siff
(inaudible) I mean.
Nwanyinma Dike
I’m only half kidding there, but that’s so good. So along the same lines of feedback, I’d flip the script and love to hear a bit of feedback about your experience at the Startup Runway Showcase.
Lauren Siff
I absolutely loved that event for a few reasons. A couple of my favorite parts. I loved running a board meeting, first of all, as part of engaging with our community and the Virginia ecosystem who came. But it really had me think in a different way about some of the decisions that I make and even some of the topics that I bring to mentors. I just joined a couple months ago Lighthouse Labs as an accelerator, and as part of that, you’re meeting with mentors all of the time, or experts who you’d love to get some feedback from. When I meet with them, I realize, if you don’t ask the right questions, or if you ask some kind of lower level feedback, you’re going to get that quality answer. So if you think about it, running it like a board meeting, the feedback you get is so helpful in strategy and even just framing how you’re thinking about your next steps in the business. So even just the activity of putting my agenda together and having that meeting with multiple people I loved. My other favorite part is that the organizations really emphasize on underrepresented founders, on supporting early stage, so that I could see that variety in the other presenters as well. I have seen a few of these people as I’m meeting them here and there and I really am learning even more about them, and I love that highlight and that focus, and that made me feel good about participating in an organization like this. I mean, you quoted us the stats, which I know, but I hate to say out loud that 2% of VC dollars go to women, 0.39% to women of color. These are horrible statistics. And so the fact that you all are, as I said earlier, like putting your money where your mouth is to make this change, makes me want to continue to participate in organizations like this and actually seek that out. And so you know, both from the board meeting perspective, feedback that we got and what you stand for. I mean, that’s my feedback on Startup Runway.
Nwanyinma Dike
I love that and not to like cheese too much or blush too much. I just love to hear that feedback just so the audience understands just the magic that happens on these days. I’m so excited to do this work, but also to hear it from the founders who are participating. And so thank you for sharing that. And along those same lines that we have many listeners who are founders themselves, who are looking for getting their first investors and being successful as you’ve been in this competition and in general, growing SurgicalEd VR, any advice that you would give to a founder who might be a few steps behind you in their journey?
Lauren Siff
Yeah. So a couple things. This is perfect timing. One of the talks I just had was inviting to the early career career surgeon faculty, but it’s totally applicable here. I took any tips about my experience, and I’m trying to put them down into a few learning things. I can share one of them. I would say allow them to underestimate you. This is something that I actually have learned. You know, like I said, I had a whole different career before this, as I’m sure a lot of founders have, and then you go into this, it’s a very humbling experience. I almost feel like an intern again, where you’re up early before work to read and prepare, you’re up late after to figure out what happened today and how can I prepare for tomorrow. I’m still also quietly googling the acronyms people around me are saying that everyone else seems to know and I don’t, or especially at an early-stage and I’m okay letting people underestimate me, because I know that they can be wrong. It’s okay to be wrong, and I also then know that I never underestimate myself. So it’s that’s you. Those are kind of the first tips, and then the other two things that really stick with me are some of my favorite words. I’ll steal this from a Peloton instructor who says know your worth and add tax. I mean, that’s the other. Like, that’s how you don’t underestimate yourself, because you know your worth and add tax. And as long as you can keep those ideas, those mantras, going forward. Those are some key tips, and then also developing your why. You know, other people have called it your purpose mantra, keeping that in mind makes the other things easier. And I also have a CEO. I call it my CEO playlist. So I’ve got a number of songs on my CEO energy playlist the day that you’re driving to work and you’re like, am I really doing this again? You know, put on some of those songs.
Nwanyinma Dike
I love that. I love the energy behind that. I love that so much of it is about how you set and reset your mindset. And I especially want to copy and paste the statement around being okay with someone underestimating you, because that doesn’t necessarily directly correlate to how you’ll be successful moving forward. Often it doesn’t at all. Sometimes it’s very inversely correlated and and I love to hear that and reiterate that to the audience, and then there goes other folks who are building and doing really hard things in this moment, it’s that when you when you allow folks to underestimate you and you don’t make that your priority, you relieve yourself of that mental strain. It’s like you allow yourself some peace in the gap there. And so thank you. That was really good. That’s really, really good. What else? So two more questions. I would love to hear a bit about your vision for the future of SurgicalEd VR. The big vision, I guess that is also part of the why, but what do you imagine you’re building your company to be in the next few years?
Lauren Siff
I imagine this as creating a paradigm shift in the way that we’re educating surgeons. So as I mentioned, I mean, I’m thinking, long are the days that we’re okay with practicing on patients. That’s number one. So in order to do so, I am going to extend beyond my first procedure into multiple other procedures, other verticals, other surgical specialties. So that one is really changing the way that we think and approach surgical training and operating on people. So that’s one, and then the other is, I really see this having a place. So I actually, I guess I should split it into three fold. One is the educational side of things and so it’s the paradigm shift. It’s long term impact on how we credential surgeons. And so, you know, the feedback I got was that we can use the metrics within my training platform to identify who is a surgeon that is capable to operate and who is not. And I see this as a hands on technique that a surgical board can then use to have you perform and see if you are able to operate. I mean, right now, it’s largely these kinds of oral board exams, where they’ll ask you questions. Take a look at cases that you’ve done before, but you’re really talking through it, and it’s key to see how somebody’s hands work if you’re giving them privileges to operate. So both on the board level, when people say they’re board certified, have this part of that. And then you know, if you want to go operate in a hospital, they have to have a way to determine if you should get privileges to operate in what you can and can’t do. And I see this as an actual objective way to give people, give your privileging bodies, a way to make that determination. And so that’s my big vision for what this can do. You know, I asked the heads of some of these surgery centers who make these decisions, and I said, how are you currently doing it? They gave me their current status, and they’re like, as I say that out loud, we’re really relying a lot on subjective criteria, so we would love something objective. And I said, So would I and I’m sure your patients would too. And so on the educational side, that’s where I have that vision. On a commercial side, I see us really helping medical device companies who want to build out their whole portfolio of products, so that they can now have one mobile platform that their representatives can take to you, to your office, so you can learn on your own time, so you can constantly keep up with the new technologies without having to spend hundreds of 1000s of dollars, multiple times a year on cadaver labs and and other forms of training that are largely ineffective. So I think paradigm shift in education, paradigm shift in the way that we’re learning and keeping up with technology. And then a large vision for me is the advocacy and philanthropy side, if you will. A big part of this is democratizing training and so being able to reach under resourced areas, rural settings within the United States as well as abroad. I’ve recently joined forces with a global surgery expedition, who have several sites internationally where they offer surgical treatment. A couple are in Belize and Rwanda and others. The reason I like them is it’s not about surgical tourism, where you’re dropping and leaving. This is about education, both for the residents and trainees that they take with them as surgeons from here, but also whenever they partner with an institution at their sites, it’s a longitudinal effort, their surgical training for the surgeons who are there and who are going to continue post op care and offering these surgeries so that now you’re affecting, as I said, kind of more that ripple effect. You’re affecting the community beyond just a one time surgical expedition, and so kind of those three arms are my big vision for where we’re going.
Nwanyinma Dike
That’s amazing. That’s incredible. And I’m sure you can imagine that the democratization of that kind of training would be something that really touches me, and that idea that your location does not, you can break down the paradigm where your location determines the level of care you get, the your location determines your access to to the very best world class surgeons. Yes, all of it.
Lauren Siff
100% should not. We have the technology, so that doesn’t need to be this way. If all it takes is the people and some passion behind it, and we’re breaking some of the regulatory, not even regulatory barriers, but working within the constructs that work individually. If all it takes is some of that effort, I’m here for it
Nwanyinma Dike
absolutely. And so I want to wrap this up one with any closing thoughts that you might have for listeners, if you have something that’s coming up that you want us to continue rooting for you around, and how people can get in contact with you, and what you’re building with SurgicalEd VR.
Lauren Siff
Yes, absolutely. So we are at a really great high growth phase where I am doing kind of all three of those things. On the educational side, I’m working on developing some of those long term studies and validation studies, and so that I’m excited about, I’ll be applying for grant opportunities. And so happy about that. If you have listeners who I know that you do in the medical device arena or pharma arena and are looking to partner, we absolutely are looking to kind of change the way that you do that, and we’re so please reach out to me there where you can see the benefit. Happy to continue those conversations and please reach out. Contact me through lauren@surgicaledvr.com for email. Connect on LinkedIn is a really great way as well for us to communicate, and I would love to hear from you know, I love connecting with other founders and other listeners that widening your lens by talking to others in this field allow me to really both balance my own creativity, but also keep you a little bit practical and so happy for feedback always.
Nwanyinma Dike
I love that. Well Lauren, we, here at startup runway, on this podcast, the Atlanta StartUp Podcast. We are always, always really rooting for you. We’re so excited about what you’ve built and what you are building, and how you’re getting closer to realizing that vision that you mentioned. And so with that, thank you, Lauren, and thank you to everyone who’s listening. Have a great rest of your day.
Lauren Siff
Thank you!
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