A Different View: In Europe, virtual and immersive technologies are starting to change the landscape of medical simulation

Over the years, air safety has improved greatly because the skills of pilots, and the ability of teams to work together in a crisis, are regularly reinforced through simulator-based training and assessment. In medicine, simulation methods increasingly show promise for attaining similar results. According to the United Kingdom?s Chief Medical Officer?s (CMO) report of 2008, studies of simulation training for surgical skills have shown that surgeons trained in this way make fewer errors and carry out technically more exact procedures. However, at that time, there were 3,200 pilots in the United Kingdom with access to 14 high-fidelity simulators. By comparison, there were 34,000 consultants and 47,000 doctors in training, including 12,000 surgeons, with access to only 20 high-fidelity simulators.