A Path to Precision
Surgical Precision Gems was founded on an idea.
Just like reconstructive surgery, a fine gemstone requires a precise hand.
The gemstone industry is filled, to this day, with poorly-cut goods. Gemstones with rounded pavilions that add weight and cost, while decreasing beauty. Horribly “windowed” gems that leak light due to incorrect proportions, instead of using proper measurements to capture and guide light back to the viewer.
Surgeons are taught to be precise while being efficient; to always stay at the forefront of scientific research; and to educate patients and the new generations. Dr. Akhavan carries these principles from his medical work into his gemstone cutting and gemological research.
Education at Every Step
Learning gemcutting was historically hard.
Historically, the gemstone industry retained trade secrets very aggressively. Gemcutters were unwilling to share techniques, designers were unwilling to share designs, and finding good resources was nigh-impossible. The only core textbooks for the field were decades old, and finding an in-person course was a nightmare. So I created a series of educational designs, YouTube series, and a litany of web resources to address that, teaching annual invited lectures at the Tucson Gem Show and training as many newbies as I possibly could.
Now, over a decade later, we’re seeing the second renaissance of gemcutting. Innovators like Rejean Poirier have pushed gemstone design software by leaps and bounds. And with better client-side education on unusual materials and properties, we’ve seen an explosion in interest for atypical gemstones with colour changes, strong pleochroism, and even in industrial crystals being repurposed for gemstone use!
When industry partners become friends, new possibilities emerge.
Information-Sharing and Partners
Cross-talk between different fields leads to new things.
Some of the greatest scientific advances in history came about because people from completely unrelated fields sat down for coffee. And the same is true for the gem industry. The leading scientists in the gemstone world bring unusual combinations of skills together. Like Dr. John Emmett and Dr. Jennifer Stone-Sundberg, whose physical chemistry and crystal growth backgrounds were critical to understanding treatments in sapphire; or Alberto Scarani and Mikko Åström, whose backgrounds in software design and laboratory equipment have given us Raman and UV-Vis-NIR equipment and databases specific to gemstone work.
My background in chemistry, medicine, and education puts me in a similar position. As someone who believes information should be truly free and freely shared, I’ve seen my open-access gemstone designs lead to a new generation of designers. And partnerships with other folks in the industry are leading to more developments, some that will soon change the synthetic gemstone market.