Tag: 2016

Made in the Berkshires: Special effects wizardry makes medical models. The Berkshire Eagle

by Michelle
Lisa Chamberlain, the vice president/managing partner of The Chamberlain Group, stands next to Surgical Sam, an elastic replica of a 14-month child the
(photo by Stephanie Zollshan — The Berkshire Eagle)

“…. Eric and Lisa Chamberlain, the husband and wife team who make their home in Stockbridge, founded the business in 1999. In fact, their company had a Hollywood beginning — like, right out of the movies — after adapting techniques they learned creating special effects for the film industry.

The Chamberlain Group works with more than 100 medical device companies and teaching and working hospitals that include Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and Columbia and Stanford universities.

It’s unusual work. They have competitors, but the Chamberlains created a business genre basically from scratch. Thus, The Chamberlain Group’s 23 employees, which include the couple’s daughter, Halli, a Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts graduate, come from diverse backgrounds.”

It’s a testament to their perceptive leadership and very fine-tuned marketing forces and strategy…. They went from a locally based business to a national reputation and now an international reputation. That’s a trajectory that we’ve hoped for many businesses to have here.

—Keith Girouard, Regional Director of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center, Pittsfield, MA

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Repeat Practice Yields Repeated Success for TSDA Bootcamp 2016

by Michelle

CHAPEL HILL, NC

The Chamberlain Group Contributes to TSDA Bootcamp
for 7th Consecutive Year and Overwhelming Success

“The TSDA achieved its goal of providing incoming residents with an experiential foundation and hands-on practice in basic cardiothoracic operating skills so that they are better prepared to enter the CT surgery operating room at their home programs. The Chamberlain Group’s role as an equipment supplier and exhibitor was essential to the program’s overwhelming success, and its support is deeply appreciated.”

Students from 40 different residency programs participated in the TSDA Bootcamp, a four day intensive introduction to the fundamentals of cardiothoracic surgery. These sessions allowed residents one-on-one interactions with highly dedicated faculty from across the country. Use of simulators for both the cardiac and thoracic sessions provided a platform for skills assessment, initial training, and a basis for ongoing deliberate practice. TSDA Boot Camp Program Directors this year included Drs. George Hicks, James Fann, Richard Feins, Jon Nesbitt, and Nahush Mokadam.

Visit the TSDA website for details on this year’s Boot Camp courses and more photos of the event.

Chamberlain Group Receives AIM “Massachusetts Next Century” Award

by Michelle

aim-lord-and-chamberlains_crIn recognition of their contributions to the region’s economy The Chamberlain Group received a Next Century Award from the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. Lisa and Eric Chamberlain joined other local area industry leaders at a reception at Interprint Inc., Pittsfield MA.

“AIM created the Next Century Award to honor the accomplishments of companies and individuals creating a new era of economic opportunity for the people of Massachusetts. These remarkable people and institutions – world leaders in their fields – inspire the rest of us by exemplifying the intelligence, hard work and dedication to success that has built our commonwealth,” said Richard C. Lord, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIM.

chamberlain-lobby

>> Full Berkshire Eagle Article — Berkshire Business That Are Aiming High

> Full AIM Press Release “AIM Honors 16 Companies & Individuals with Next Century Awards”

“How does a group of high-end visual effects professionals working in movies and television end up improving the quality of medical care for millions of people?

If you’re The Chamberlain Group in Great Barrington, you use your visual effects wizardry to make mimetic organs for surgical and interventional training.

Chamberlain’s life-like organs are used in the sophisticated simulation labs that medical schools, hospitals and medical device makers employ to train surgeons. The company’s mission is to “bring practice to the practice of medicine.”

The Chamberlain Group’s products are sold to more than 150 medical-device manufacturers and teaching institutions in 50 countries, including Russia and India, Asia and the Middle East, and in virtually all 50 states domestically. Their client list includes Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Cleveland Clinic, Lahey Clinic, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, and NASA.

Berkshire Business Quarterly magazine said, “The Chamberlain Group’s design ingenuity has been a breakthrough for the medical community. Models look, weigh, and feel just like real living tissue and provide a better training device than a cadaver, animal, or lesser-realized product would.”

Eric and Lisa Chamberlain launched The Chamberlain Group in 1999 after working for New York design firms that made miniature models and special visual effects for films ranging from Gandhi, Tootsie, and The Big Chill to Ghostbusters, Predator and Woody Allen’s Zelig. Medical schools and device manufacturers were beginning to move away from cadavers and animals in their training programs and the Chamberlains saw opportunity in the burgeoning simulation business.

It was a textbook case of nimble entrepreneurs adapting skills from one industry to a seemingly unrelated one. The result is a thriving enterprise with 23 employees working in an 8,500-square-foot design and manufacturing facility.”