Justin Barad, MD

A board-eligible orthopedic surgeon, Barad is the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Osso VR, an award-winning startup that leverages virtual reality for surgical training and assessment.

While interning to become a game developer at Activision-Blizzard, Barad decided to combine his passions and use his technology background to solve medical challenges after a personal family health incident introduced him to the world of health care. During his residency, Barad identified what could be one of the most pressing medical challenges of this century: how we are training our surgeons and proceduralists. With a strong interest in gaming and a firsthand understanding of the challenges residents and experienced physicians face, he co-founded Osso VR with a mission to improve patient safety and democratize access to modern surgical techniques. Today, leading university hospitals and medical device companies in more than 20 countries use Osso VR’s technology to train thousands of surgeons on dozens of the latest surgical techniques. 

Barad has contributed as an editor at Medgadget for more than a decade and currently serves as a member of the Consumer Technology Association’s Health Technology Division Board of Directors. He has spoken at multiple conferences, including TEDMED, the Consumer Electronics Show, Exponential Medicine, and Health 2.0. Barad holds a medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he graduated first in his class, and a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from University of California, Berkeley. He completed his residency at UCLA and his fellowship in pediatric orthopedics at Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital.