Faculty

Dr. Jihad Kaouk is an internationally recognized, board-certified urologist with a focus on robotic surgery and innovation. He serves as the Chair of the Department of Urology of the Cleveland Clinic, as well as the Professor of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. He currently 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) 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. He was recently elected as member of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons (AAGUS) and holds the position of Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s Urology Video Journal, past President of the Engineering and Urology Society (EUS), Board of Directors of the Endourological Society, as well as Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors of the Ohio Urological Society (OUS). His previous involvements included the American Urological Association’s (AUA) Urologic Diagnostic and Therapeutic Imaging Task Force (2005–2008), committee member for the Guidelines for the Management of Small Renal Masses (2006–2010), previous chair of the AUA New Technology and Imaging Committee, as well as the past president of the Society of Urologic Robotic Surgery (SURS). He has also been the Co-Director of the robotic SP Marathon for the last five years. Dr Kaouk has been a proud mentor of more than 100 clinical and research graduate fellows.

Dr. Kaouk’s contribution extends through more than 350 scientific meetings where he has lectured, chaired 60 urologic meetings, and conducted live surgeries in 18 medical centers worldwide. With a current h-index of 106 and over 46,872 citations, his contributions include over 630 peer-reviewed publications, 75 book chapters, and hundreds of abstracts and surgical movies. Dr. Kaouk has been honored with 70 awards, including the Teacher of the Year Award (2012), the Cleveland Clinic Innovator Award (2006, 2011, 2013 and 2017), the Endourology Best Fellowship Program Director Award (2017), International Innovations Award by the Vattikuti Foundation (2022), nominated to the Sones Innovations Award (2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021), and the AUA Distinguished Contribution Award (2024).