AHF Podcast
The AHF Podcast features thoughtful conversations about orthopedic surgery, outcomes, and clinical decision-making, with a particular focus on hip surgery and related innovation. Produced by the Anterior Hip Foundation, the podcast brings together surgeons, researchers, and clinical leaders to examine how evidence, experience, and real-world practice intersect. Episodes explore what the data actually shows, where assumptions break down, and how clinicians navigate uncertainty in daily practice. This podcast is intended for orthopedic surgeons, trainees, and medically literate clinicians who value nuanced discussion, critical thinking, and honest examination of what improves patient care.
Episodes
What real-world use reveals about a medical device that no clinical trial ever could — and why the most dangerous moment in med tech innovation often comes after success, not before. A conversation about the fatigue failures, reimbursement gaps, and feedback breakdowns that surface only at scale.
For ten episodes, the From Idea to Market series has followed medical innovation through every threshold an idea...
Alex Sah on what it actually takes for a practicing surgeon to develop new orthopaedic tools — from first idea to OR adoption.
An honest conversation about mentors, mistakes, AI, and knowing when to walk away from a collaboration.
Most surgeons spot problems in the OR daily and quietly adapt to the limits of existing tools. Alex Sah, a high-volume hip and knee surgeon in Silicon Valley and Chief Me...
What med tech investors and strategic acquirers actually evaluate when a founder walks into the room — and what separates the pitches that earn capital from those that don't. A conversation drawn from people who've sat on both sides of the table.
For nine episodes, the From Idea to Market series has followed innovation from the founder's perspective — the problem noticed in a clinic, the iteration thro...
Charles Lawrie, MD — president of the Anterior Hip Foundation and a high-volume anterior approach hip and robotic knee surgeon in Miami — walks us through how a frustration in his own clinic became FIOS Health, an AI-powered patient communication platform now used in orthopaedic practices across the United States. This is an extended From Idea to Market conversation about the often lonely process of turning a clinic...
What does it actually take to move a medical device from a working prototype to a product that can be built reliably at volume? In this episode of From Idea to Market, surgeons, founders, and attorneys describe the discipline that separates an approved device from a scalable company.
Most medical device teams underestimate what happens after a prototype works. Manufacturing at scale is a different problem f...
There is no such thing as an off-the-record innovation discussion. Even a casual conversation over drinks can create a factual record of idea sharing that impacts patent ownership, joint development leverage, and your negotiating position for years. Emily Ast, a contract attorney whose practice is 75 percent orthopedics, explains exactly what surgeon innovators need to know before they say a word to anyone — includi...
A patient had already signed every document — but no one had told her she would lose her stomach. That moment early in her anesthesia training convinced Marie-Isabelle Batthyány that informed consent was fundamentally broken. Years later, she built XRS Medical, a VR platform that replaces paper consent forms with immersive, avatar-delivered patient education and tracks attention in real time using a patented eye-tra...
Garland Surgical's flagship product, the TriActiv Hip (formerly known as the MaltaHip), replaces the ball-and-socket geometry that has defined hip arthroplasty for 120 years with a cylindrical bearing system inspired by the biomechanics of the ankle joint. Simon Mifsud, CEO of Garland Surgical, explains how this design virtually eliminates dislocation risk and reduced wear by 75 percent in accelerated testing.<...
Your device just got FDA clearance. So why isn't anyone using it? In this episode of From Idea to Market, Joe Schwab and a panel of surgeons, engineers, and MedTech leaders explore why regulatory approval is only the beginning — and what it actually takes to earn a place in the operating room.
Clearance tells you a device is safe and effective. It doesn't tell you whether a busy surgeon will chang...
Charlie DeCook has exited seven medical device companies while performing 1,500 joint replacements a year — all packed into three clinical days per week. In this extended interview, he breaks down exactly how he evaluates new technologies and why he now filters every opportunity through an AI and robotics lens.
DeCook traces his entrepreneurial arc from his first venture in surgical impaction — a product th...
What actually happens between building a medical device and getting it approved? In this episode of From Idea to Market, we walk through the regulatory valley that separates a working prototype from a cleared product — and why so many promising innovations stall right here.
This is the stage where progress stops being about what you can build and starts being about what you can prove. Joe Schwab breaks down...
Doug Fairbanks left a robotics commercialization role at Johnson & Johnson to lead a deep tech startup most surgeons had never heard of. In this conversation, the president and CEO of VISIE Inc. explains why — and what their continuous anatomic auto tracking technology could mean for the future of robotic-assisted surgery.
VISIE started as Advanced Scanners, a company founded by optical physicist Aaron ...
Most MedTech founders think financing is about getting enough money to keep building. But once you take capital, it reshapes your governance, your priorities, and your pace — and some consequences don't surface for years.
In this episode of the AHF Podcast's From Idea to Market series, we explore what funding actually buys beyond time and resources, how capital decisions redistribute power within a startup,...
Robert Cohen has spent four decades on both sides of the MedTech table — founding companies, selling them, and now evaluating billion-dollar acquisitions as Stryker's VP of Innovation and Technology for Orthopedics. In this conversation, he shares exactly what a global company looks for when it decides whether a startup's technology is worth acquiring.
Cohen's career reads like a timeline of ...
Dr. Sebastian Rodriguez-Elizalde built a same-day anterior hip program inside a Canadian public hospital — not a private surgical center. This conversation covers what it actually takes to change your approach, your team culture, and your system all at once.
Sebastian trained in posterior approach at HSS and transitioned to anterior approach early in his independent career. In this episode, he talks honestl...
This is a deep-dive extended interview with the team behind ForCast Orthopedics — a company working to change how periprosthetic joint infection is treated. It's for orthopedic surgeons, arthroplasty specialists, and anyone interested in how a clinical idea becomes a medical device company.
The conversation brings together Dr. Jared Foran (CSO and co-founder), Dr. Leo Whiteside (the surgeon whose intra...
This episode is about the moment an idea needs a formal structure to move forward — and why that choice is just as strategic as any technical decision. It's for clinician innovators, med tech founders, and anyone trying to understand how organizational structure shapes what an innovation can realistically become.
The episode draws on voices from across the From Idea to Market series — surgeons, enginee...
This episode explores what proof of concept really means in medical device development — and why the hardest problems at this stage are rarely technical. It's for clinician innovators, engineers, and anyone navigating the gap between a promising idea and a product that can survive the real world.
The episode draws on perspectives from surgeons, engineers, and founders across multiple active med tech ventures. To...
Dr. Kristoff Corten built an AI-driven platform called Hip Cloud that predicts patient outcomes after hip replacement — and it's changing the way he practices. If you're an orthopedic surgeon interested in how predictive analytics, personalized care pathways, and clinic efficiency can reshape your workflow, this conversation is for you.
In this episode, Joe Schwab sits down with Belgian orthopedic surgeon a...
This episode explores how orthopedic innovators determine whether a clinical problem is worth solving at scale. We examine the transition from recognizing a frustration in practice to building a defensible business case for medical device development.
Featuring perspectives from surgeons, CEOs, engineers, and legal experts, this conversation unpacks the critical questions that separate ideas worth pursuing ...
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