Stanford Surgery

What Stanford Surgery does

The Stanford University Department of Surgery is an academic medical department within Stanford School of Medicine, founded in 1925 and headquartered at 300 Pasteur Drive, Palo Alto, California. The department is organized into five clinical divisions — Abdominal Transplantation, General Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, and Vascular Surgery — and operates across three institutional missions: patient care, research, and education. It is ranked 7th nationally in NIH funding among surgery departments, holds ACS-AEI Level 1 accreditation for its Goodman Surgical Education Center, and comprises a core administrative/faculty cohort of approximately 11 with roughly 40 postdoctoral researchers.

The department delivers clinical care through Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health, supports an ACGME-accredited residency and fellowship pipeline, and pursues research spanning basic science to clinical trials. Recent grant activity includes an ARPA-H award of up to $22.3 million for intraoperative visualization under the LIGHT Program, multiple NIH R01/R35/R21/F32 awards, and NSF-funded training programs. Distinctive research programs include spring-mediated enterogenesis for short bowel syndrome (Dunn lab), the biology of creeping fat in Crohn's disease, AR-guided lumpectomy, computer-vision–based surgical skill assessment, and machine-learning prediction of post-operative delirium.

Revenue is non-commercial: the department is funded through clinical service billing via Stanford Health Care, federal and private research grants (NIH, ARPA-H, NSF, DoD), philanthropy, and institutional support from Stanford Medicine. International engagements include a kidney transplant training collaboration with Lusaka (Zambia), a microsurgery partnership with Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (Taiwan), and training relationships in Rwanda, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. The department marked its centennial in 2025.

Name

Stanford Surgery

Legal name

Stanford University Department of Surgery

Website

https://surgery.stanford.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

1925

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Stanford Surgery is the Department of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, organized into five clinical divisions that deliver surgical care through Stanford Health Care while conducting research and training surgeons. Ranked 7th nationally in NIH funding.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Academic Surgical Services

NAICS

General Medical and Surgical Hospitals (62211), General Medical and Surgical Hospitals (622110)

SIC

Services-General Medical & Surgical Hospitals, Nec (8062), Surgical & Medical Instruments & Apparatus (3841)

akta.pro primary industry

Surgical Robotics & Computer-Assisted Surgery Platforms (HLAHADAF)

Keywords

• Academic surgical care
• Surgical residency training
• Surgical fellowship programs
• Translational surgical research
• Minimally invasive surgery

Headquarters

HQ city

Stanford

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Healthcare Services: Clinical care provided through Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health hospital systems
2. Research Grants and Funding: NIH funding (ranked 7th in NIH funding), R01 grants, DOD grants, ARPA-H funding, and various foundation grants
3. Donations and Philanthropy: Gifts from donors including endowed professorships, postdoctoral fellowships, scholarships, and general fund support

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Stanford Surgery is the academic Department of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, providing subspecialty clinical surgical care to patients, training of residents and postdoctoral fellows, and basic, translational, and clinical research in surgery. It operates clinical programs at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital with a faculty of approximately 130 surgeons and roughly 40 postdoctoral research scholars.

Product overview

Stanford Surgery is the Department of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, organized into five clinical divisions: Abdominal Transplantation, General Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and Vascular Surgery. The department offers a unified portfolio of surgical care services, education and training programs (residencies, fellowships, scholarships, high school summer programs), research initiatives (S-SPIRE Center, Holman Research Day, clinical trials, Scrubcast podcast), and quality improvement programs (SurgIQ, RITE). The Goodman Surgical Education Center provides simulation-based training with ACS-AEI Level 1 accreditation. Key research programs include ARPA-H funded work on lymphatic diseases and AI-powered surgical training tools being developed at the TECI Center.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Goodman Surgical Education Center: ACS Level 1 accredited surgical education institute providing simulation-based training for surgical residents and medical students.
• S-SPIRE Center
• TECI Center

Products and services

• Clinical Surgical Services Subspecialty clinical surgical care for adult and pediatric patients, including general, oncologic, transplant, trauma, vascular, pediatric, and cardiothoracic surgery, delivered by the department's faculty at Stanford-affiliated hospitals and clinics.
• General Surgery Residency Program ACGME-accredited graduate medical education program that trains physician residents in general surgery, with progressive operative and clinical responsibility across subspecialty rotations.
• Surgical Fellowship Programs Post-residency subspecialty fellowship training in surgical disciplines such as transplant, trauma/critical care, surgical oncology, vascular, and pediatric surgery, for board-eligible surgeons seeking advanced subspecialty expertise.
• Postdoctoral Research Training Program Postdoctoral research training in surgical and biomedical science, providing structured mentorship and research experience for early-career scientists and physician-investigators in the department's laboratories.
• Surgical Research Programs Sponsored basic, translational, and clinical research conducted by department faculty, funded through competitive grants, contracts, and industry collaborations.

Quantifiable outcome

• Three patients with short bowel syndrome were weaned off parenteral nutrition after spring device placement
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability8 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (Taiwan)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Stanford's Breast Surgery Team performed the world's first live demonstration of omental breast reconstruction with nipple neurotization at the 2025 Chang Gung Microsurgery Conference in Taiwan. Dr. Dung Nguyen led the demonstration with support from Stanford faculty.
• University of Zambia / Lusaka Teaching HospitalcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Dr. Tom Pham and Stanford faculty are working to create a kidney transplant program in Lusaka, Zambia, with fellow Stanford faculty including Dr. Ken Tran (Vascular Surgery) and Dr. Maha Mohamed (Nephrology)
• UCSF-Stanford Pediatric Device ConsortiumcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDr. Orestis Vardoulis works with this consortium through Dr. James Wall's lab, organizing the monthly Innovators Forum to help device developers get feedback from experts
• Zeit MedicalminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCompany resulting from Stanford Biodesign Fellowship work to develop a device that detects early onset of stroke; raised more than $250,000
• ARPA-H LIGHT Program PartnerscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStanford Medicine researchers including Dr. Andy Loening received ARPA-H funding to advance magnetic resonance lymphangiography (MRL) for lymphatic disease diagnosis and treatment
• ARPA-H - CisionVision PartnershipcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDr. Lisa Knowlton co-leads $22.3 million ARPA-H award with Zhongming Li from CisionVision, a medical device company in Mountain View, CA, for intraoperative anatomy visualization

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• UCSF Department of Surgery: West Coast peer academic surgery department with overlapping geographic patient catchment, similar NIH funding profile, and joint pediatric device consortium partnership with Stanford. Closely comparable in clinical and research scope.
• Duke Department of Surgery: Top-tier academic surgery department competing with Stanford for NIH funding, surgical residents, and complex surgical referrals. Operates a similar multi-division structure covering transplant, general, and specialty surgery.
• University of Michigan Department of Surgery: Leading Big Ten academic surgery department with strong NIH funding, comparable residency and fellowship programs, and similar multi-specialty clinical operations. Direct competitor in the top-10 NIH-funded surgery departments.
• Mayo Clinic Department of Surgery: Integrated, multi-site academic surgery enterprise with similar scope of complex surgical care, research funding, and training programs. Comparable in scale and prestige to Stanford Surgery.
• Johns Hopkins Department of Surgery: Top U.S. academic surgery department with similar tripartite mission of patient care, research, and surgical training across multiple divisions. Direct competitor for NIH funding, surgical talent, and complex patient referrals.
• MD Anderson Department of Surgical Oncology: Top-tier academic surgical oncology department at the leading cancer center, comparable in scope to Stanford's surgical oncology activities and competing for the same NIH/NCI cancer-related research funding.
• Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Surgery (Harvard): Harvard-affiliated academic surgery department operating under the same model of integrated clinical care, NIH-funded research, and residency/fellowship training. One of Stanford's primary competitors for federal grants and surgeon-scientist recruitment.
• Cleveland Clinic Department of Surgery: Large, integrated academic surgery enterprise operating across multiple hospitals with comparable clinical, research, and educational missions. Competes for complex referrals, surgeon-scientist talent, and federal research grants.
• University of Pennsylvania Department of Surgery: Ivy League academic surgery department with similar tripartite mission, large NIH-funded research portfolio, and integrated hospital system. Competes directly with Stanford for federal funding and surgical talent.

Broad incumbents

• Intuitive Surgical: Established leader in surgical robotics and computer-assisted surgery platforms. Adjacent to Stanford's AR-guided lumpectomy and AI-driven surgical training work; represents the commercial incumbent in the technology categories where Stanford is innovating.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/StanfordSurgery
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCZSaIqBjJi82cuW-TjPB4KA
• Facebookfacebook.com/StanfordSurgery
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/stanfordsurgery
• Instagraminstagram.com/stanford_gsec

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Subsidiaries4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Stanford Surgery