Virtual Reality Lab Enhances Surgeons' Skills

A virtual reality lab is helping surgical residents acquire basic surgical skills such as reconnecting the intestines or suturing blood vessels.

A new virtual education and surgical simulation laboratory at the Medical College of Georgia (Augusta, USA) is intended to be a regional resource, not only for MCG resident and student education, but for practicing and training physicians as well as allied health care professionals who can use the lab as a continuing education venue to learn new surgical techniques. In addition, the laboratory has virtual reality simulators that teach depth perception, eye-hand coordination, and camera operation. Residents and students follow a curriculum that allows them to learn techniques such as approximating incisions, placing chest tubes, tying different types of sutures, repairing bowel injuries, and performing endoscopic and laparoscopic procedures. The surgical residents also watch video presentations on different surgeries and other procedures, and are tested on how much they have learned. Finally, residents can conduct a review their results to observe how the simulators have benefited them.

"The important part of the curriculum and lab is that it will increase the expertise of the residents, making them more proficient as they do open-operations and endoscopic and laparoscopic cases,” said Michael Edwards, M.D., a gastrointestinal surgeon and assistant professor at MCG. "We'll have residents who are better trained and have [better] skills, meaning when they go to the operating room, they can operate faster, more efficiently and safer.”

"You become familiar with a lot of the different instruments,” said Angela Gucwa, M.D., a second-year surgical resident at MCG. "I think it really helps with patient care and comfort, especially in things like the GI Mentor where you're practicing upper [gastrointestinal] endoscopy and colonoscopies. The familiarity in terms of placement of the scope really helps when you're ready to actually perform those procedures on patients.”

In 2009, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (Chicago, IL, USA), a U.S. national organization that accredits residency programs, will mandate that all accredited surgical residency programs in the United States have a skills facility to train surgical residents before they perform in the operating room.

Related Links:
Medical College of Georgia
Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education