Reaching for Innovation, One Failure at a Time

Richard Satava always knew he wanted to be a surgeon, but he faced challenging obstacles and detours along the way. As a premed at Johns Hopkins University, he loaded his class schedule with science classes. But Satava’s college counselor advised him to take an arts major, as he had the rest of his life to study science. So Satava studied a master degree in architecture and failed. Yet he pursued his goal. Before a medical school in Philadelphia accepted him, 12 had turned him down. Just three months before his graduation, the Army drafted him. Following several assignments, he wound up working on robotics for ...