ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Paul Yock has spent his remarkable career shattering long-held myths and confounding conventional wisdom in clinical medicine, medical education and innovation/entrepreneurship. Here he shares the highlights of this extraordinary journey with his co-founder of what is now the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign, Josh Makower.
A common and essential element of true creativity and innovation in any field is the willingness to not accept conventional wisdom and devise new and improved approaches to solving traditional problems. Having the courage to withstand the criticism that goes along with trying to breakthrough long-held practices is a quality found in pioneers of all fields, but generally that leadership is confined to a specific domain. In medicine generally and medtech specifically, that typically takes the form of having key opinion leaders (KOLs) who excel clinically, academicians whose strength lies in training the next generation of physicians in their specialty, clinicians able to work with engineers to translate ideas into new technologies, and those physicians who can master the art of innovating through launching start-up companies to develop these innovative devices. Usually those are separate skillsets that need to be combined as a group effort to bring a new device idea to the market to benefit patients. Rarely do you find one person who possesses all of those skills and when you do, that person truly deserves to be celebrated.
Paul Yock, MD, is that rare individual and his life and career were recently celebrated as part of the Innovator’s Workbench series presented by the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign, which he co-founded
