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About

Saratu Kutana is a rising researcher at the intersection of surgical education, robotic surgery, and objective performance assessment. Her work centers on developing and validating video-based evaluation tools to measure technical skill in minimally invasive procedures, with a particular focus on eliminating bias and improving patient outcomes. In her most cited paper (33 citations), she systematically reviewed the literature on objective assessment of robotic surgical skills, identifying critical gaps and charting future directions for the field. A landmark study (10 citations) demonstrated that blinded intraoperative skill evaluations can eliminate gender-based bias in surgical assessment, a finding with profound implications for equity in training and credentialing. Kutana also pioneered outcome prediction in bariatric surgery through video-based analysis (4 citations) and investigated whether robotic technical skill explains differences in operative performance across the surgical learning curve (4 citations). Her work challenges the assumption that small video samples are sufficient for reliable assessment, revealing significant heterogeneity among practicing surgeons. By combining rigorous methodology with a commitment to fairness, Kutana is shaping how the next generation of surgeons is trained and evaluated.