Building the surgical training of tomorrow, today
You see the gap in your field. We build the model that closes it.
Every specialty has a step that is critical to master and rare to practise. If you can name that gap, we can close it: we develop the training model, handle production and distribution, and build the course around it. You stay the clinical lead and the course director.
An initiative within the Anatomical Training Hub: Medical University of Innsbruck, Institute of Clinical and Functional Anatomy, eyecre.at GmbH and Addion GmbH.
The gap nobody talks about
Patients assume surgical training is standardised. Today, it cannot be.
Hands-on training depends on human body donation, which is limited in number, in availability, and in the pathologies it can present. A real, reproducible standard only becomes possible once every surgeon can train the same challenge, the same way, as many times as it takes.
Irreplaceable for the original. But scarce, variable in pathology, and impossible to schedule on demand. It can never scale to every surgeon on the continent.
Any pathology. Any quantity. On demand. A model for every obstacle a surgeon will face, repeated until the hand has mastered it.
A model will never fully equal the original. Its value is not in the print. It is in the continuous course cycle that keeps drawing the model closer to clinical reality.
How the partnership works
You bring the clinical question. We bring everything else.
Most surgeons who see a gap in their field never close it, because closing it means engineering, manufacturing, regulatory documentation, distribution and event organisation. None of that is your job, and none of it should have to become your job.
- Name the gap. The step in your specialty that is hard to learn, hard to repeat, and costly to get wrong.
- Advise through development. Anatomy, tissue behaviour, what has to feel right in the hand and what can be simplified without losing the point.
- Validate the result against clinical reality, until the model is good enough to teach on.
- Lead the course as its scientific director.
- Engineer and print the model with the Institute of Clinical and Functional Anatomy at MedUni Innsbruck and Addion.
- Manufacture and document it, regulatory paperwork included, and ship it across Europe.
- Build the course around it: venue, faculty logistics, registration, accreditation.
- Carry the commercial side, so you never have to found a company or sell anything.
Under your direction
You commission the work and you decide what the model has to do. Nothing goes out under your name until you have signed it off.
Development is funded jointly
Usually through a clinic budget or a research grant. We have been through those applications before and prepare them with you, rather than leaving them on your desk.
What you get, and what you do not
A validated model in your field, a peer-reviewed publication with your name on it, and the position of having set the training standard in your specialty. Deliberately not a share of the revenue: no surgeon earns from the models they help design. That is what keeps the teaching free of commercial interest, and it is what accreditation rests on.
Already proven
This is not theory. It has been done once already, end to end.
LidSUMMIT exists because oculoplastic surgeons and anatomists in Innsbruck named a gap and stayed with it until it was closed. It is now an EACCME accredited surgical wetlab course running 20 hands-on stations with 13 faculty from ophthalmology, plastic and reconstructive surgery, and clinical anatomy. Forty surgeons have trained on it across the first two editions, and the third sold out its forty places before it opened. It proves the core thesis: development costs can be refinanced through course participation, and surgeons gain a better training offer than donation alone can provide. The next step is scaling it into a European standard.
- The gap. Eyelid surgery is learned on few cases, and the decisive steps are rarely available to repeat.
- The clinicians. Anatomists and oculoplastic surgeons at MedUni Innsbruck defined what a model would have to do to be worth teaching on.
- The model. M.A.R.K.O. LID, engineered with Addion and Stratasys, and revised course by course.
- The course. LidSUMMIT, 20 hands-on stations, 13 faculty from three specialties.
- The recognition. EACCME accredited, 24 ECMEC credits, and every place in the next edition taken before it opened.
That is the whole mechanism, from a clinical complaint to an accredited European course. Your specialty could be next.
Built on the Anatomical Training Hub, a partnership of MedUni Innsbruck, eyecre.at and Addion. See the proof of concept at lidsummit.com.
Cases
One method, three specialties so far.
Every case follows the same five steps: the gap, the clinicians, the model, the course, the recognition. One has completed the whole path, one is in development, one is at the very first step.
M.A.R.K.O. LID and LidSUMMIT
From a clinical complaint to an EACCME accredited course. Three editions, 80 places, all taken, and a model that is still being revised.
Done end to end
VascuTrain
A modular carotid simulator, developed on the commission of two vascular surgeons at MedUni Innsbruck. First complete prototype in September 2026.
In development
Perineal repair and hysteroscopy
A head of department came to us with the idea in July 2026. No model exists yet, and that is the point: this is what the first step looks like.
In conversation
The fourth case could be yours. See all cases in detail, or describe the gap in your specialty.
What exists today
The standard starts with models that are already in surgeons' hands.
This is not a concept waiting for funding. The first models are developed, anatomically validated, and in use in accredited courses. Every further region follows the same route: clinical need, anatomical validation, printed model, course, revision.
M.A.R.K.O. LID
Europe's first 3D-printed eyelid surgery training model, developed with the Institute of Clinical and Functional Anatomy at MedUni Innsbruck, Addion and Stratasys, and validated at LidSUMMIT Tirol 2025. How this model was built.
In use, available
Ophthalmic training models
Artificial eyes for cataract, vitreoretinal, glaucoma and injection training, developed and manufactured in Austria since 2014 and shipped across Europe.
In use, available
VascuTrain and vessel models
Vessel models for microsurgical anastomosis are in use. VascuTrain, a modular simulator for open vascular surgery, is in development with vascular surgeons at MedUni Innsbruck: a training head, an exchangeable tissue block and multi-layer arteries in one carry case. See the case.
In development
Eyelid, eye and vessels today. Every region a surgeon has to master tomorrow. Which region comes next is decided by the clinicians who join as development partners.
From Tirol to a European standard
Three steps from a single course to a continental standard.
Unlimited where donation runs out
Where body donation reaches its limit, additive manufacturing takes over. Every surgeon trains the same case, to the same quality, as often as mastery requires.
Models that keep improving
Each course feeds back into the next model. Surgeon, anatomist, engineer: a closed loop of refinement that no single printout could ever replace.
Accredited, and recognised across borders
Our flagship course already holds EACCME accreditation and awards 24 ECMEC credits. The task now is to make that the norm across the network, so a mastered skill means the same thing in Innsbruck, Bolzano, or anywhere on the continent.
Shaping the European standard
Built to meet Europe's recognised standard for medical training.
A standard only means something if it is recognised the same way across borders. That recognition in European continuing medical education comes from one place: EACCME, the accreditation body of the UEMS.
We do not have to argue that this is achievable. LidSUMMIT already holds EACCME accreditation and awards 24 ECMEC credits, convertible to AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. That is the template. What remains is to extend it: every course in the network built to the same criteria, so that a skill mastered on our models means the same thing in Innsbruck, Bolzano, or anywhere in Europe.
Learn more about European CME accreditation at eaccme.uems.eu.
Every course is designed from the start to meet EACCME's requirements for independent, high-quality CME.
LidSUMMIT is EACCME accredited and awards 24 ECMEC credits. Every further course in the network is built to the same requirements.
Our aim: help shape what reproducible, model-based surgical training means as a continental standard.
Additive, never substitutive
The university and the private sector each do what the other cannot.
This is not a contest between cadaver and model, or between academia and industry. It is an interdependence. The university brings the anatomical truth and the academic authority. We bring the quality control: the scaling, the iteration speed, the standardisation, the refinancing that an academic structure is not built to deliver.
Together, and only together, they become a standard.
| University | Anatomical and academic validity. Human body donation. Scientific authority and oversight. |
| Private sector | Quality control: model development, course delivery, scaling, accreditation, refinancing. |
| The result | Better craftsmanship before the first cut, and fewer errors where it matters most: the patient. |
Independent by design
Real training, not a product demo.
No industry sponsor decides what is taught here.
Every course is built around the skill a surgeon has to master, not around a device someone wants to sell. We carry the cost of reaching surgeons ourselves, because whoever pays for the reach shapes the content. That independence is also what EACCME accreditation is built on, so protecting it is not idealism, it is a requirement.
Whoever pays for the reach shapes the content. So we own the reach, and the content stays ours.
Courses are built around the skill, not around a device or a sponsor's catalogue.
We bring the standard directly to Europe's surgeons, independently and at scale.
Independence is what EACCME credibility is built on, and what we protect.
In their words
Why it matters, from the people building it.
Body donation, together with all its modern extensions, from 3D visualisation to 3D-printed models, ultimately serves one purpose: the care of future patients.
I'm not a surgeon, I'm a sailing skipper. I can watch all the videos I want before a voyage, but watching never becomes knowing until your hands are on the helm. The same is true for surgery.
In partnership with
Built by the people who set the standard.
Surgical Standard is delivered through a partnership of clinical and academic authority with the engineering and operational capacity to scale it across Europe.
Supported & advised over years
Backed by Tirol's public innovation ecosystem.
This is not a standing start. The groundwork was laid over years of public support: funding from the Province of Tirol, strategic advice from Standortagentur Tirol, and a home for eyecre.at inside Health Hub Tirol. That long-term backing is what made an additive, scalable approach to surgical training possible.
Funded by
Years of funding from the Province of Tirol (Land Tirol) supported the research and development behind the additive-training approach.
Advised by
Standortagentur Tirol provided strategic guidance and funding advisory as the concept took shape.
Hosted at
eyecre.at is based in Health Hub Tirol, Tirol's hub for life-sciences and medical-technology innovation.
Where to start
One conversation, three ways in.
Almost everything starts the same way: a surgeon describes a gap in their own field. The other two routes open up once a model and its course exist.
Bring a gap from your specialty
You do not need a concept, a budget or a business plan. You need a clear description of what surgeons in your field cannot practise often enough, and the willingness to advise the development and lead the course that follows. The rest is ours to organise.
Once a model and its course exist, institutions join in two further ways.
Run the course in your region
Bring an existing, accredited course to your own institution and train your own and visiting surgeons on it.
Send your surgeons to train
The simplest way in: give your team access to accredited, hands-on training without setting anything up yourself.
The three feed each other: a surgeon defines the model, host institutions carry it into their regions, sending institutions sustain it. Together they make the standard real, and self-supporting.
Questions we get asked
The honest answers.
I see a gap in my specialty. What happens if I get in touch?
A short call, about thirty minutes, in which you describe what surgeons in your field cannot practise often enough. We say honestly whether a model can close that gap, and if it can, we work out the funding route with you before anyone commits to anything.
Do I have to fund the development myself?
No. Development is funded jointly, usually through a clinic budget or a research grant. We have been through those applications before and prepare them together with you. You are not expected to arrive with a budget.
Do I earn anything from the model?
No, and that is deliberate. No surgeon earns from the models they help design. What you get instead is a validated model in your field, a peer-reviewed publication with your name on it, and the position of having set the training standard in your specialty. Keeping money out of it is what keeps the teaching free of commercial interest, and it is what accreditation rests on.
Do 3D-printed models replace human body donation?
No. They are additive, never substitutive. Body donation remains irreplaceable for original anatomy, for variation, and for research. Printed models cover what donation cannot deliver: the same pathology, in the same quality, as often as a surgeon needs to repeat it. Most of our courses use both.
Are the courses accredited?
Yes. LidSUMMIT is accredited by EACCME, the accreditation body of the UEMS, and awards 24 ECMEC credits, which can be converted to AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Every further course in the network is built to the same criteria.
Which training models exist today?
The M.A.R.K.O. LID eyelid model, a range of artificial eyes for cataract, vitreoretinal, glaucoma and injection training, and vessel models for microsurgical anastomosis. In development: VascuTrain, a modular carotid simulator for open vascular surgery. In the concept phase: a perineal repair trainer and a hysteroscopy model for gynaecology and obstetrics.
Who is behind Surgical Standard?
It is an initiative within the Anatomical Training Hub: the Medical University of Innsbruck with its Institute of Clinical and Functional Anatomy, eyecre.at GmbH and Addion GmbH. It is supported by Land Tirol, Standortagentur Tirol and Health Hub Tirol.
Where do the courses take place?
Currently at the Medical University of Innsbruck. The whole point of the host institution model is that they take place wherever an institution in Europe wants to run them.
Let's develop it together
The best training, delivered to every surgeon.
Not to expand the system, but to raise its quality. If you are a surgeon with a gap in your own field, or a clinic, university or accrediting body that shares the goal, we want to hear from you.
Start a conversationWe reply within two working days. If it is easier, write in German or English, both are fine.