Gero Strauss (born July 23, 1971 in Leipzig, Germany) studied medicine at the University of Leipzig from 1990 to 1997. Practical training sections took him to the Neurosurgical Clinic of the University of Innsbruck (Austria), the ENT University Clinic Indianapolis (USA) and the ENT Clinic Kent (England). 5 years later he completed his further training as a specialist in ENT medicine and worked without interruption at this clinic until 2009, where he last held the position of deputy clinic director as senior consultant. Gero Strauss' teachers included Prof. Friedrich Bootz, Prof. Olaf Michel, Prof. Wolfgang Draf, Prof. Volker Seifert and Prof. Jürgen Meixensberger. Gero Strauss has always been a clinical doctor, performing more than 10,000 surgeries and treating countless patients in many countries. His focus in patient treatment was all microsurgical ENT operations, in particular surgery of the paranasal sinuses near the base of the skull, the middle ear and the inner ear, but also plastic-aesthetic interventions. Strauss has trained more than 50 ENT colleagues, including numerous senior physicians and chief physicians. However, Gero Strauss is not only strictly surgical, but is open to new and alternative procedures in a critical and constructive manner, as his support for the use of regeneration factors on the nasal mucosa and the inner ear proves.

Strauss worked scientifically in his doctorate for Dr.med. initially with the "paraganglia of the middle ear", which he developed under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wolfram Behrendt successfully defended in 2003. This was followed in 2006 by the habilitation thesis "An integrated concept for computer-assisted ear, nose and throat surgery", which was combined with a license to teach at the University of Leipzig. In 2008, Gero Strauss received an extraordinary professorship from the Alma mater lipsiensis as one of the youngest representatives of his subject at the time. In 2016, he was appointed lecturer at the Technical University of Munich at the Institute for Medical Technology (Prof. Dr. Tim Lüth) and an honorary professorship at the medical faculty of Adis Ababa (Ethiopia).

Even as a young doctor, Gero Strauss was fascinated by the possibilities of the computer-aided medical technology that was emerging at the time. His teachers at the time, Prof. Bootz, Prof. Seifert and Dr. Trantakis gave him access to the then unique open magnetic resonance tomograph, with which the position of instruments when accessing the pituitary gland via the nose could be displayed in real time. With Prof. Heinz Lemke (TU Berlin, Institute for Computer Science), Strauss implemented the first mathematical algorithms to represent medical decisions, which led to the establishment of the "Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery", the ICCAS, at the University of Leipzig in 2004 Founded mainly on the initiative of Gero Strauss with more than 9 million euros by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Important representatives of computer science in medicine, such as Prof. Oliver Burgert (Reutlingen) and Prof. Thomas Neumuth (Leipzig) owe Strauss the entry into unique academic careers. With the pioneer of ENT endoscopy, KARL STORZ (Tuttlingen) and one of the most important developers in this field, Prof. Dr. Tim Lüth (TU Munich, Chair MiMed), Strauss implemented the first family of navigation functions, such as active instrument tracking, the integration of neuromonitoring in the navigation of the facial nerve, and power control of the surgical milling machine in petrous bone surgery. To this end, KARL STORZ and ErgoSurg (Ismaning) designed a portable navigation system that enabled widespread use for the first time and has been installed more than 300 times to date. This system was later supplemented with more powerful integrated systems, which are still the basis of the automated operating room today. For these achievements, Gero Strauss received the "Hans-Joachim-Denecke Prize" from the German Society for Skull Base Surgery in November 2006 and the "Award for Excellence in Computer Aided Surgery" from the interdisciplinary CAS-H in February 2007. Strauss was President of the Congress in the following year was excellent.

After 10 years working at a German university clinic, Gero Strauss founded his own clinic in 2009. Here Strauss wanted to demonstrate the feasibility of computer-assisted, partially automated ENT medicine outside of state clinics. He gradually took over ENT practices in Leipzig, Halle, Berlin, Dresden and a total of 15 locations and treated more than 200,000 patients a year there with up to 30 ENT doctors. Unlike most operators, Strauss did not only rely on privately insured patients , but faced the tight reimbursement rates of the statutory health insurance companies, which account for around 95% of the services provided by KOPFZENTRUM. The ACQUA Klinik Leipzig, which is still the reference center for the 4th generation operating room, was created in order to also offer the challenging surgical treatments of the specialty. By using the assistance systems, mostly developed by Strauss, even complex interventions on the paranasal sinuses, the meninges and the middle ear could be carried out successfully in a minimally invasive manner and mostly in a day clinic. With up to 4,500 ENT operations per year, the clinic has developed into one of the largest providers in Germany and has by far the world's greatest expertise in navigation-assisted procedures. This is also reflected in the more than 500 trade visitors from more than 30 countries around the world who travel to Leipzig for training courses. The ever-increasing demand for training courses at the ACQUA Clinic ultimately led to the founding of the International Reference and Development Center for Surgical Technology (IRDC®), which welcomed more than 3,000 specialist visitors to Leipzig in a separate area of the clinic over the past 5 years. As a result of this intensive trainer activity, in cooperation with exceptional talents of the subject like Prof. Dr. Reda Kamel, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Draf, Prof. Dr. Schick, Prof. Dr. Bettag, Prof. Dr. Marco Caversaccio, Prof. Dr. Simmen, Prof. Dr. a'Wengen and many more, Gero Strauss played a key role in founding the Leipzig company Phacon®, which is now the world market leader in the production of artificial, anatomically identical models of complicated body regions and allows surgeons to train in any situation.

Strauss finally used the experience of the early years for his concept of "medical automation". With partners such as KARL STORZ, Johnson&Johnson and the Leipzig SPI®, which he and his partners Dr. Gunter Trojandt and Jozsef Bugovics and their own development department at ACQUA Klinik, systems such as the "Surgical Procedure Manager" now support the course of the surgical procedure and the "Medical Operation & Decision Manager" support diagnostics and treatment. In the meantime, methods of machine learning and artificial intelligence are also being used to evaluate various therapy methods, and the doctor is gradually being given a monitoring role.

The successes of the concept were viewed critically at an early stage by the predominantly state clinics, which had to accept that sticking to old structures for the ENT subject was not only expensive, but also partly unnecessary. This had already been shown in comparison with other countries such as Spain, the USA and Canada, in which the subject ENT is mainly offered on an outpatient basis and is significantly cheaper. The conflict intensified when Strauss and his colleagues managed to secure the first contract for outpatient treatment of hard of hearing or deaf patients with a cochlear implant in 2017, reducing the cost of this treatment by more than 40%. From then on, KOPFZENTRUM and ACQUA Klinik had to face the accusation of being profit-oriented again and again, although they had to get by with less than 50% of the reimbursement rates. Gero Strauss always responded by focusing on the quality of the work done. The Medical Performance Management, which is unique to this day, not only measures the process compliance of the doctors, but also publishes the results of the treatments so that everyone can see them and compares them with each other. Gero Strauss repeatedly campaigned for a change in the billing system for medical services, away from the performance-hostile and fraud-prone system of flat-rate billing towards transparent "pay for performance" models. But in contrast to the successes in other European countries, the desire to stick to traditional structures was too great to achieve general acceptance.

Since 2020, a journalist has been reporting regularly as a freelancer for the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk about the allegation of alleged treatment errors and incorrect billing of services in a total of 7 patients. Strauss responded to these allegations just as regularly and was able to refute them, above all because the patients had previously unsuccessfully taken action against KOPFZENTRUM. Despite the negative reporting, the number of patients grew steadily. In October 2022, after more than 2 years of preparation, police officers searched practices, apartments and the clinic. The press, which was present at the same time, referred to the already known allegations. As a result, Gero Strauss declared his withdrawal from all positions "in order not to burden the clarification of the allegations and the undisturbed work on the patient". He explained the unrestricted cooperation with the authorities, in which he sees "above all an opportunity for an objective assessment of the allegations after more than two years of one-sided presentation". As planned for a long time, a majority of KOPFZENTRUM was taken over by a German financial investor in the summer of 2022, on condition that the success story of KOPFZENTRUM and ACQUA Klinik be continued in the spirit of Gero Strauss. For this purpose, the successor in the management was handed over in an orderly manner. The investigation, however, continues for an indefinite period of time. Since then, Gero Strauss has been in demand internationally as a contact person for complicated questions in the field of ENT and as a speaker. He also devotes himself intensively to development projects relating to the future of medicine with old and new partners.