Richard M. Satava, MD, FACS is Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington Medical Center, and Senior Science Advisor at the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Rick was the surgeon on the team that developed the first surgical robot, and developed the first virtual reality surgical simulators. For the past 15 years he has been at DARPA, and now US Army Medical Research Command, funding leading edge medical technologies at tens and hundreds of millions of dollars a year. He was awarded the Smithsonian Laureate in Healthcare in 1997 and 1999.
Prior positions include Professor of Surgery at Yale University and a military appointment as Professor of Surgery (USUHS) in the Army Medical Corps assigned to General Surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Program Manager of Advanced Biomedical Technology at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Rick’s undergraduate training was at Johns Hopkins University, medical school at Hahnemann University of Philadelphia, internship at the Cleveland Clinic, surgical residency at the Mayo Clinic, and a fellowship with a Master of Surgical Research at Mayo Clinic.
He has served on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Committee on Health, Food and Safety. He is currently a member of the Emerging Technologies and Resident Education, and Informatics committees of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), is past president of the Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), past president of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons (SLS), and is on the Board of Governors of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) as well as on a number of surgical societies. He is on the editorial board of numerous surgical and scientific journals, and active in numerous surgical and engineering societies.
Rick has been continuously active in surgical education and surgical research, with more than 200 publications and book chapters in diverse areas of advanced surgical technology, including Surgery in the Space Environment, Video and 3-D imaging, Telepresence Surgery, Virtual Reality Surgical Simulation, and Objective Assessment of Surgical Competence and Training.
During his 23 years of military surgery he has been an active flight surgeon, an Army astronaut candidate, MASH surgeon for the Grenada Invasion, and hospital commander during Desert Storm, all the while continuing clinical surgical practice. While striving to practice the complete discipline of surgery, he is aggressively pursuing the leading edge of advanced technologies to formulate the architecture for the next generation of Medicine.
Rick is on the Editorial Boards of Surgical Endoscopy, Minimally Invasive Therapy, Telemedicine Journal, Computer Aided Surgery, Journal of The American College of Surgeons, and Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons.
He edited Cybersurgery: Advanced Technologies for Surgical Practice, coedited Emerging Technologies in Surgery, Interactive Technology and the New Paradigm for Healthcare, (Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 18), and Robotics in Endoscopic Surgery (New Techniques in Surgery Series), authored How the Future of Surgery is Changing: Robotics, Telesurgery, Surgical Simulators and Other Advanced Technologies, Emerging Technologies for Surgery in the 21st Century, Telemedicine, Virtual Reality, and Other Technologies That Will Transform How Healthcare is Provided, and Virtual Reality and Telepresence for Military Medicine, and coauthored Virtual Reality Training Improves Operating Room Performance: Results of a Randomized, Double-Blinded Study. Read the full list of his publications!
Rick earned his BA at John Hopkins University in 1964, his MD at Hahnemann University in 1968, and his MS (Surgery Research) at the Mayo Clinic in 1972.
Watch UCF on the Issues: Dr. Richard Satava. Read A futurist’s view.