SurgiBox: Providing Safe Surgery In Areas Without Sterile Operating Rooms

Category Health

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SurgiBox, a startup collaborating with MIT’s D-Lab, has developed a portable surgery system to provide safe surgical access in areas without sterile operating rooms. The entire setup fits inside of a backpack and includes a bubble with armholes, a module that filters and controls airflow, and a battery. The company was founded by Debbie Teodorescu, a student at Harvard who got the idea for SurgiBox while lamenting how difficult it was to conduct surgery safely in so much of the world.


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SurgiBox, a startup collaborating with MIT’s D-Lab, has developed a portable surgery system to provide safe surgical access in areas without sterile operating rooms, a concept that was demonstrated successfully during a humanitarian mission to Ukraine.

In March, two vans filled with doctors and medical supplies crossed the Polish border into Ukraine and made their way to Kyiv as part of a humanitarian mission. Both vans were packed with traditional medical supplies the country is in desperate need of, such as tourniquets, bandages, and suture kits. But one van also carried about 50 units of an entirely new system that makes it possible to perform surgery safely in places without sterile operating rooms.

SurgiBox is a startup collaborating with MIT's D-Lab

The systems were designed by SurgiBox, a startup that has worked extensively with MIT D-Lab for more than a decade, and they hold promise for applications far outside of warzones. Most of the world’s population lacks ready access to operating rooms, and in situations like severe weather and other natural disasters, healthcare operations can be disrupted just when they’re needed most.

The SurgiBox system includes a bubble with armholes facing inward, a module that filters and controls airflow, and a battery. The entire thing fits inside of a backpack and can be set up in minutes.

The SurgiBox system fits into one backpack and can be set up in minutes

"We’re trying to get safe surgery to patients that need it," says SurgiBox founder Debbie Teodorescu, who is also an affiliated researcher at MIT D-Lab. "In this day and age, outside of a very small chunk of the world, it’s very difficult to get surgery safely. You can have the same doctors, the same outstanding skills, but if you’re lacking in the facilities and the equipment, you just can’t offer the same care." .

SurgiBox was founded by Debbie Teodorescu who was an affiliated researcher at MIT D-Lab

For the Ukraine donation, SurgiBox’s team flew to Poland, waited in a long queue at the Ukrainian border, and then drove for several hours into Kyiv, where they withstood air raid alarms at all hours while training doctors on how to use the system.

The trip was arduous and gave SurgiBox’s team a newfound appreciation for Ukrainians’ daily hardships. In many ways, it was also the culmination of a far longer journey that started with an idea Teodorescu had back in 2009.

The system was developed in 2009 by Teodorescu while she was a student at Harvard University

Teodorescu was a student at Harvard University when she first got involved with D-Lab as part of a research project around 2009.

"It was such a friendly and welcoming environment, and at the end of the project they said, ‘If you’re ever working on something or want to bounce ideas around, we’re your people,’" she recalls.

Soon after that experience, she got the idea for SurgiBox while lamenting how difficult it was to conduct surgery safely in so much of the world.

The SurgiBox system was successfully tested during a humanitarian mission to Ukraine

"I thought, ‘We’re able to protect our experiments wherever we need using glove boxes, so why can’t we do the same thing for patients?’" Teodorescu remembers. "That’s how SurgiBox came about — a surgical glovebox. Now, it’s not really a box, and we don’t include gloves, but the same concept holds: You can provide patient protection at the poi .


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