Haptic-Enabled Telementoring Surgery Simulation

Medical surgery involves a high degree of skill and experience, making the learning curve for medical trainees quite long. For instance, in eye cataract surgery, despite it only taking around seven minutes for a well-trained surgeon to perform and having a success rate of 99 percent, medical residents need months to become proficient in this procedure to avoid its typical complications. Medical trainees traditionally have acquired surgical skills through apprenticeships in which trainees observe senior surgeons, then perform under guidance until they achieve mastery. Training often makes use of cadavers or laboratory animals, but this type of training is becoming increasingly difficult to do in many countries due to ethical reasons. An effective alternative is medical simulation, which can enhance understanding, improve performance, and assess competence; in preoperative settings, it assists surgeons in remaining at a high technical skill level. Surgical simulation can provide high-fidelity training that increases the diffusion of innovative and less- invasive procedures while decreasing the surgeon's learning curve.