Photo: Adam Honeybrook, MD, OHNS Resident, presents at the 2nd Annual Innovation Jam
Two teams from the Department of Surgery were selected to pitch their ideas to a team of “sharks” at the 2nd Annual Innovation Jam hosted by the Duke Institute for Health Innovation (DIHI) on October 4. Modeled after the TV show Shark Tank, the annual event aims to promote innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurship at Duke.
Out of a large pool of proposals from across the university, six multidisciplinary teams were chosen to present their strategies for healthcare innovation to a group of potential investors. Dr. Allan Kirk, Chair of the Department of Surgery, served as an investor at the Innovation Jam for the second year in a row.
“I think today demonstrates that there’s a broad recognition at Duke of the value of innovation in addressing the extraordinarily rapidly changing environment of healthcare that faces us,” says Dr. Kirk.
“It’s pretty clear that we have all the ingredients here to really be leaders in innovation. We have extraordinary ideas, great investigators, and extraordinary talent at all levels of the innovation stairwell. This should create the type of environment that will spin out meaningful products and meaningful solutions to really, really difficult problems.”
Congratulations to the following finalists from the Department of Surgery!
Duke Surgery Finalists
“Endoswitch: Changing the paradigm of endoscopic surgery”
- Team Lead: Adam Honeybrook, MD, Resident in Otolaryngology
- David Jang, MD, Division of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences
- Mark Shapiro, MD, Division of Trauma and Critical Care Surgery
- Thomas Polascik, MD, Division of Urology
- Tawfiq Khoury, MD, Resident in Otolaryngology
- Ken Gall, PhD, Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Associate Director of MEDx
- Kelly Umstead, Assistant Professor of Industrial Design, NC State University
- Advisor: Jeffrey Lawson, MD, PhD, Division of Vascular Surgery
“Novel biomarkers to manage advanced heart failure treatments”
- Team Lead: Muath Bishawi, MD, Resident in Cardiothoracic Surgery
- Dawn E. Bowles, PhD, Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery
- Carmelo A. Milano, MD, Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery
- Chetan B. Patel, MD, Department of Medicine
- Salvatore Pizzo, MD, PhD, Department of Pathology
- Frank Jefferson