Mikael Petrosyan, MD, MBA: Why a Surgeon Built STAT
By Mikael Petrosyan, MD, MBA, Founder & CEO of STAT Energy
It's the middle of the night, and the call comes in: a newborn with malrotation needs an emergency operation. There's no waiting until morning. Within minutes I'm scrubbed in, and for the next several hours nothing else exists. When it's over, I realize I haven't eaten since lunch the day before. Coffee got me there. It wasn't enough. We've all been there, whether you're a nurse, a resident, a first responder or anyone pulling a long shift, day or night.
I'm Mikael Petrosyan, and I'm a pediatric surgeon. For more than twenty years my days have been measured in cases, call nights and early rounds.
The idea for STAT came to me as a medical student. I was set on becoming a pediatric surgeon, and I already knew the people doing this work deserved something better to eat than whatever was closest. Surgery came first. Years later, after countless call nights proved that idea right, I was finally able to build it.
If you've worked a night like that, you know the rhythm. The schedule says there is time for lunch. The next patient says otherwise. You grab a coffee, you grab whatever is closest, and you get back to work, because someone is counting on you.
I needed real food, not just more coffee. I always wanted something I'd actually enjoy eating that would give me a boost of energy while on call, before heading into the OR, or right before rounds. I couldn't find it. So I made it.
That is how STAT started. In medicine, STAT means now. It means drop everything, this matters. That is the standard I wanted a bar to meet, and it's why I named it STAT.
Every STAT bar has 100mg of caffeine, about a strong cup of espresso, for energy and alertness when you need it. It has 16 to 19g of whey and milk protein, depending on flavor, and 0g added sugar. Chocolate gets its caffeine from coffee fruit extract. Peanut Butter Espresso and Salted Caramel Coffee use real coffee plus coffee fruit extract. Across the three flavors you'll also find maca, ashwagandha, cordyceps and reishi, in the recipe for flavor. Every number is printed on the wrapper, so you always know exactly what you're getting.
Taste mattered as much as the label. A bar nobody wants to finish at hour eleven doesn't help anyone. So we ran flavor and texture rounds with the people we built it for, nurses, residents, medics and night-shift techs, and kept going until the bars came back empty instead of half-eaten.
Because STAT was never only for surgeons. It's for the nurse who just worked a double. The paramedic who hasn't sat down since sunrise. The firefighter running toward what everyone else runs from. The resident who forgot what daylight looks like.
You don't do what you do for the credit. You do it because someone has to. I built STAT for the moments when there's no time to stop and no room to slow down. One bar in your pocket, ready when you are.
Power when seconds count.
Mikael Petrosyan, MD, MBA
Founder & CEO, STAT Energy