Faculty

Dr. Jihad Kaouk is an internationally recognized, board-certified urologist with a focus on robotic surgery and innovation. He serves as the director of the Center of Robotic and Image-Guided Surgery and as the Vice-Chair of Enterprise Surgical Operations at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Kaouk is also a Professor of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and holds the Zegarac-Pollock Endowed Chair in Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgery.

In the realm of innovations, he has pioneered several groundbreaking surgical procedures. Notable among them are the first robotic single-port (SP) transumbilical surgery in 2008, the inaugural completely transvaginal nephrectomy in 2009, and the pioneering robotic perineal prostatectomy in 2014. Dr. Kaouk was at the forefront of implementing the SP robot into the urologic field in 2018. He achieved milestones such as the first SP extraperitoneal, perineal, and transvesical robotic prostatectomy, as well as SP extraperitoneal kidney transplantation and partial nephrectomy. Dr. Kaouk holds six USA patents for medical devices and is the co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Method Surgical AI.

Since 2005, Dr. Kaouk has actively served on committees at both national and local levels. His involvement includes the American Urological Association’s (AUA) Urologic Diagnostic and Therapeutic Imaging Task Force (2005–2008) and the Guidelines for the Management of Small Renal Masses Committee (2006–2010). Dr. Kaouk served as the chairman of the AUA New Technology and Imaging Committee and is the past president of the Society of Urologic Robotic Surgery (SURS). He has been the Co-Director of the SP Marathon for the last three years. Currently, he holds the position of Editor-in-Chief of the Urology Video Journal and serves as the president-elect of the Engineering and Urology Society (EUS).

Dr. Kaouk’s influence extends through more than 300 scientific meetings where he has lectured, chairing 34 urologic meetings, and conducting live surgeries in 18 medical centers worldwide. With a current h-index of 102 and over 42,600 citations, his prolific contributions include over 620 peer-reviewed publications, 72 book chapters, and hundreds of abstracts and surgical movies. Dr. Kaouk has been honored with 62 awards, including the Teacher of the Year Award (2012), the Cleveland Clinic Innovator Award twice (2013 and 2017), the Endourology Best Fellowship Program Director Award (2017), International Innovations Award by the Vattikuti Foundation (2022), and the AUA Distinguished Contribution Award (2023).