As a Certified Surgical First Assistant (CSFA), Jeff Smith has spent years working alongside surgeons in the operating room. Through that experience, he's gained a perspective most patients never have the opportunity to see.

Operating room professionals witness how surgeons work, how they make decisions, how they handle unexpected challenges, and how they treat the people around them. When someone we love needs surgery, we naturally want them in the hands of a surgeon we trust.

But most patients don't have the benefit of knowing someone who has actually worked alongside the surgeon they're considering. That's the idea behind LocateASurgeon. We're developing a platform where qualified operating room professionals can recommend surgeons based on their firsthand experience performing specific procedures together.

The question behind every recommendation is simple: If someone you love needed this surgery, which surgeon would you trust?

Our goal is to help patients make more informed decisions by giving them access to a perspective that has traditionally remained inside the operating room. We're beginning with a private research pilot to develop and evaluate our recommendation and verification process.