Meet the team behind a VR surgical training game-changer
FEATURE
SURGHIVE IS READY TO THRIVE
Meet the team behind a VR surgical training game-changer
PICTURES: TOM BANKS WORDS: DAVE ROBSON
Three business partners, one goal- to transform surgical training by using immersive virtual reality technology.
With extensive experience of robotic surgery, Prof Deena Harji and Dr Rachael Coates MBA know the pitfalls of the current training arrangements and, with their Surghive project, they’ re determined to make things better.
Add Christi Anderson to the mix as COO, with her considerable financial and business start-up experience, and they have all bases covered in their mission to revolutionise medical education by providing immersive, accessible and effective VR training solutions.
Winner of the Tees Tech Awards Start- Up category- see the awards coverage in this issue of Tees Business- platform agnostic Surghive will allow surgeons to practise complex medical procedures anytime, anywhere without needing to physically access costly surgical robots. But who are the women behind it? Originally from Redcar, Rachael completed her surgical training in the North-East, became a consultant in Sunderland and, just over a year ago, came out of clinical practice to commercialise Surghive- which was originally called Robohive but it recently rebranded. She also has a master’ s in business administration on an AI theme.
Teessider- Surghive’ s Dr Rachael Coates, speaking at the Tees Tech Awards, completed her surgical training in the North-East.
Winners- Surghive’ s Prof Deena Harji, Dr Rachael Coates and Christi Anderson at the Tees Tech Awards after winning the start-up category.
On her first day of surgical training, she met Deena- who’ s become one of the leading voices in her field. The only female professor of robotic surgery in the UK, her multiple roles, nationally and internationally, are hugely advantageous when it comes to accelerating Surghive’ s growth.
Deena said:“ It puts me in a really unique position when it comes to understanding the key problems that face our surgical community and workforce when it comes to the acceleration of robotic surgical technologies, particularly around training and simulation.
“ It also provides me with open access to a host of stakeholders, including key policy and decision makers, NHS surgeons, hospital executives and industry partners, to help us deliver Surghive’ s mission, which is to educate, empower and inspire everyone to adopt robotic surgery.”
Christi, meanwhile, is from Nebraska but moved to Teesside during Covid with her Hartlepool-born husband. She came on board after talking to Rachael, whom she knew socially, about her business background.
Rachael recalls:“ I knew Christi as an interior designer but had no idea she had a finance background. Then I found out she’ s a trained accountant with international experience in finance and things just escalated.”
Three founders with complementary skill sets- but with a combined passion to make Surghive the global leader in VR medical training. Christi said:“ The aim is to grow and scale the business from the Tees Valley and employ local talent. We’ re very lucky to have such a vibrant local tech community so we want to grow jobs here and utilise that talent.”
Rachael says the frustrating accessibility issues she and Deena faced during their training continue to inspire their passion for Surghive.
Rachael told Tees Business:“ We’ re three fierce females that each give 100 %. We’ re all 100 %, larger-than-life characters, but it works because of the spheres our areas of expertise sit in.
“ Deena and I are both surgeons, although she’ s an academic surgeon with an enormous career in robotics whereas my duality in the entrepreneur and robotic surgery scenes means I can translate the business to the medical side and vice versa, so it works well.”
A national soft tissue robotics pilot is due by the end of the year and, hopefully, commercialisation in early 2027.
Rachael said:“ The primary thing we need is for people to know about us, whether developers or people in supporting roles who might be interested.
“ Anyone who feels they want to support us on the journey, please reach out to us and have a conversation. There’ s no limit to the number of people you need on a journey like the one we’ re embarking on.”
Visit robohive. org
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