[gumby]

I was considering doing a startup addressing skin cancer and a number of Mohs surgeons were happy to have me come in and observe the entire process. To the patients they'd just say "he's observing today" and not even introduce me or ask the patient (or me) to sign anything.

I have a friend whose startup cared was doing a surgical product; after I told him my story he called up a bunch of plastic surgeons and went and observed a bunch of them.

Both of us were interested in workflow; the actual science we had done on animals of course, but our research was aimed at seeing if the product would be viable (could be medically wonderful but if the doctors don't care they won't use it on the patients, even if it improves outcome).

I don't think we could have done this at a hospital, but given that it was surgery (surgeons have a lot of freedom) perhaps we could have.