In the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of surgical data science, our dedicated Director of Product, Dor Spitzer, is the glue that holds together many SDSC’s most promising and exciting collaborations. With a passion for problem-solving and a unique ability to bridge the gap between technical teams and external partners, Dor plays a pivotal role in ensuring that our product development is always driven by empathy and real-world needs.
A Day in the Life: Dor’s Role as the Director of Product
Dor’s daily work involves wearing multiple hats. From leading product development to working closely with all our incredible teams, he ensures that every team member is aligned with the company’s mission to improve surgical outcomes.
His core responsibility? Defining SDSC’s value proposition to our customers. “It’s about translating feedback from all different departments into a product that meets both internal goals and external expectations,” Dor explains. This includes collecting input from surgical partners, analyzing user needs, and crafting development plans that reflect those insights. He ensures that each team’s feedback — whether from Engineering, Machine Learning, or Partnerships — becomes a clear, actionable product roadmap.
Effective communication and thoughtful planning are paramount to a clear workflow. Rather than making promises on the spot, Dor gathers feedback, presents it to SDSC’s management team, and collaboratively decides the next steps. Once a decision is made, he’s all in — communicating outcomes to partners and ensuring transparency every step of the way.
Connecting with Users
One of Dor’s defining traits is his empathy-driven approach to product development. Diving deep into the feedback he gathers from partners and users, “The key is to ask the right questions and really listen” he says. By constantly connecting with our users, he’s built a practice of frequent conversations to stay aligned with their needs.
“It’s not enough to assume people are using a service the way we intended. We need to understand how they’re actually using it, where the friction points are, and what they need next,” he adds. This open communication channel has been instrumental in SDSC’s success.
Bringing Ideas to Life through Cross-Team Collaboration
One of Dor’s notable achievements was spearheading the development of metadata tabs — an organizational feature for our Surgical Video Platform (SVP). This feature was created based on user feedback, prioritized as a team, and refined through collaboration with Engineering. After extensive testing, the feature was rolled out to partners, who reported excellent results and a significantly improved experience on SVP.
“It’s all about finding the right way to translate feedback into action,” Dor says. “Each team at SDSC has different processes for developing our solutions, so I need to communicate that feedback using the language of each team.”
Dor’s ability to navigate these nuances has been key to making SDSC a thriving multidisciplinary network. By embracing different perspectives and opinions, SDSC is at the forefront of cutting-edge, user-centric product development.
Building Meaningful Partnerships
As a key driver of SDSC’s partnerships, Dor has helped build relationships that have shaped our product and team. One example is our collaboration with University of Oklahoma, where Dor’s team adapted the SVP to meet specific needs, like user tagging and stabilizing the data pipeline. Another successful partnership involved working with medical student Danielle Levy of the University of Southern California (USC) to overcome data-sharing hurdles and streamline communication processes for publication of neurosurgical research.
“Each partnership brings its own challenges and opportunities,” Dor reflects. “But when we solve those challenges together, we strengthen both our product and our relationships.”
Inspired by Mission and Growth
Dor’s journey at SDSC started with a shared passion for product innovation. His role as Director of Product evolved naturally, motivated by his deep engagement with SDSC’s vision and goals.
When asked about his favorite part of the job, Dor didn’t hesitate: “The people. This team is full of incredibly smart, passionate individuals.”
With Dor’s leadership, SDSC is on a path to creating even more meaningful analytics for the surgical community. As we continue to expand our data science capabilities and refine our support ecosystem, Dor’s empathy-driven approach will ensure our product remains a tool for transformation. “Every new feature is a challenge and a puzzle,” Dor says. “And I love solving it with this team.”
Collaboration is at the core of everything we do. We believe the best solutions come from working closely with our partners — understanding their challenges, refining our approach, and building a platform that truly serves their needs. If you’re considering working with us, know that we are here to make the process seamless, and break down the barriers to surgical video data accessibility. Get in touch with our fantastic team to shape the future of surgical data science – together!
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