Innovation in Neurosurgery: Lessons Learned, Obstacles, and Potential Funding Sources

Abstract

Innovation is central to neurosurgery and has dramatically increased over the last twenty years. Although the specialty innovates as a whole, only 3–4.7% of practicing neurosurgeons hold patents. Various roadblocks to innovation impede this process such as lack of understanding, increasing regulatory complexity, and lack of funding. Newly emerging technologies allow us to understand how to innovate and how to learn from other medical specialties. By further understanding the process of innovation, and the funding that supports it, Neurosurgery can continue to hold innovation as one of its’s central tenets.