In this conversation, host Jon Chan sits down with Dr. Farzad Najam, a board-certified cardiac surgeon with over 26 years of experience performing complex heart surgeries. Formerly the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at George Washington University Hospital, Dr. Najam has spent decades working on the front lines of healthcare.

But after years inside operating rooms and ICUs, he began to see a critical problem: healthcare training systems haven’t evolved fast enough to reduce human error.

Dr. Najam shares how medical errors account for an estimated 250,000 deaths each year in the United States, making them one of the leading causes of mortality. He believes technology can help address this challenge—not by replacing doctors, but by empowering them with better tools.

That belief led him to found VRCure, a company focused on combining virtual reality, immersive simulations, and artificial intelligence to train healthcare professionals more effectively.

Through VR-based simulations, providers can practice critical procedures like CPR, ECMO life support, and emergency interventions in realistic environments that mimic real-world stress. The goal is not just training—it’s measuring and maintaining true competency over time.

Dr. Najam explains how AI can track skill levels, predict when a provider’s competency may decline, and recommend short retraining sessions to keep their skills sharp. The system shifts healthcare from outdated certification-based training toward continuous competency monitoring, similar to how pilots regularly train in flight simulators.

The vision for the future? A world where surgeons could rehearse complex procedures using a digital twin of their patient, reducing risk and improving outcomes before the first incision is ever made.

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