Enter the OR Arena (ORena)!

Date: 01.10.2026, 08:30 - 11:30

Location: Floor G, Luxembourg

This event brings together leading voices from academia and industry to explore one of surgical AI’s toughest frontiers: understanding hours-long surgical video. From the clinical challenges that motivate SAVE FOCUS to the unexpected lessons of building and annotating a large-scale surgical VQA benchmark, the workshop culminates in the challenge results – revealing where today’s leading models succeed, where they fail, and what comes next for surgical AI.

AGENDA

Timeslot Title Description Presenter

08:30 - 8:45 Enter the ORena Welcome and introduction Lena Maier-Hein (DKFZ, MBZUAI)

8:45 - 9:05 Keynote

The most difficult challenge in surgery: 2500 years and counting Measuring surgical skill remains a persistent challenge, training varies widely, and volume is often the only metric we have. New tools promise a revolution in understanding technical performance. Thomas G. Weiser (Stanford University)

9:05 - 9:20 Challenge Insights

From Surgical Video to VQA: Lessons from Annotating a Clinical Benchmark What does it take to turn hours of surgical video into clinically meaningful questions and answers? This talk explores the clinical perspective on designing and annotating surgical VQA benchmarks, using retained foreign objects as a concrete patient-safety use case. Chloe Nobuhara (Stanford University)

9:20 - 9:35 Gold Sponsor Presentation

AWS for Healthcare in Medical Imaging and beyond Discussing healthcare and AI for medical imaging use-cases across the industry with key customer reference case studies and how healthcare leaders shape innovation with AWS. Christoph Russ (Amazon Web Services)

9:35 - 9:40 Bronze Sponsor Presentation

The Next Frontier of Surgical AI: An Industry Perspective Insights from an industry leader into the next generation of surgical AI. Aneeq Zia (Intuitive Surgical)

9:40 - 10:00 Challenge Insights

Behind the scenes: what we didn't expect when building a surgical video benchmark This talk takes you behind the scenes of SAVE FOCUS, sharing the unexpected technical and practical challenges encountered while building the benchmark - from using blind baselines to uncover unintended shortcuts and biases to tackling the complexities of processing and evaluating hours-long surgical videos. Leon Mayer (DKFZ)

10:30 - 11:15 Coffee break

10:30 - 11:15 Challenge Insights

And the winner is… Pushing the Limits: What the FOCUS Challenge Taught Us About Surgical VLMs Lucas Luttner (DKFZ) & Patrick Godau (DKFZ)

11:15 - 11:30 Closing Beyond SAVE FOCUS:

What's Next for ORena? Thomas G. Weiser & Lena Maier-Hein

Timeslot	Title	Description	Presenter
08:30 - 8:45	Enter the ORena	Welcome and introduction	Lena Maier-Hein (DKFZ, MBZUAI)
8:45 - 9:05	Keynote The most difficult challenge in surgery: 2500 years and counting	Measuring surgical skill remains a persistent challenge, training varies widely, and volume is often the only metric we have. New tools promise a revolution in understanding technical performance.	Thomas G. Weiser (Stanford University)
9:05 - 9:20	Challenge Insights From Surgical Video to VQA: Lessons from Annotating a Clinical Benchmark	What does it take to turn hours of surgical video into clinically meaningful questions and answers? This talk explores the clinical perspective on designing and annotating surgical VQA benchmarks, using retained foreign objects as a concrete patient-safety use case.	Chloe Nobuhara (Stanford University)
9:20 - 9:35	Gold Sponsor Presentation AWS for Healthcare in Medical Imaging and beyond	Discussing healthcare and AI for medical imaging use-cases across the industry with key customer reference case studies and how healthcare leaders shape innovation with AWS.	Christoph Russ (Amazon Web Services)
9:35 - 9:40	Bronze Sponsor Presentation The Next Frontier of Surgical AI: An Industry Perspective	Insights from an industry leader into the next generation of surgical AI.	Aneeq Zia (Intuitive Surgical)
9:40 - 10:00	Challenge Insights Behind the scenes: what we didn't expect when building a surgical video benchmark	This talk takes you behind the scenes of SAVE FOCUS, sharing the unexpected technical and practical challenges encountered while building the benchmark - from using blind baselines to uncover unintended shortcuts and biases to tackling the complexities of processing and evaluating hours-long surgical videos.	Leon Mayer (DKFZ)
10:30 - 11:15	Coffee break
10:30 - 11:15	Challenge Insights And the winner is…	Pushing the Limits: What the FOCUS Challenge Taught Us About Surgical VLMs	Lucas Luttner (DKFZ) & Patrick Godau (DKFZ)
11:15 - 11:30	Closing	Beyond SAVE FOCUS: What's Next for ORena?	Thomas G. Weiser & Lena Maier-Hein