Kyle Ettinger, M.D., D.D.S., is an associate professor of surgery within the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.  He is a maxillofacial surgeon specializing in head and neck oncologic surgery and microvascular reconstruction. 

Dr. Ettinger’s clinical interests in surgical innovation encompass using image-based tumor modeling, virtual surgical planning, 3D printing, and patient-specific implants to improve patient outcomes in head and neck oncology and reconstruction. Dr. Ettinger has published numerous manuscripts on leveraging virtual surgical planning and 3D printing to provide individualized surgery for patients. He has a keen interest in developing the future of this technology to incorporate augmented reality applications into daily surgical practice. He has developed several novel applications for virtual surgical planning and guided surgery that have been adopted by industry and are employed in modern standard-of-care reconstructive workflows. Dr. Ettinger is also heavily involved in clinical research and is the Mayo Clinic principal investigator of a multi-institutional phase II/III cooperative group clinical trial evaluating sentinel lymph node biopsy versus elective neck dissection in early-stage oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. 

Dr. Ettinger is the director of innovation within the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Together with Dr. Cornelius Thiels, associate chair of innovation, they lead the department's innovation efforts to bring together partners in industry, with the goals of fostering product co-development, product commercialization, first-in-human trials, and novel technology adoption within the broader Mayo surgical ecosystem.