Abstract:

This paper focuses on the design of a simulation based learning environment and its impact on medical students’ learning and training. The field of interest is orthopedic surgery. Medical surgery involves rigorous training for a student (or medical resident) specializing in surgery. Typically, medical students train on cadavers or animals to develop these skills. The drawbacks of such methods is the risk of infection as well as changing public perceptions related to ethical treatment of animals. The training also involves the residents observing a surgery carried out by a master surgeon and gradually taking over from them which is a tedious process of training. The creation of virtual reality based simulation environments holds the potential in increasing the quality of training while decreasing the time needed for training. These simulators can play a key role in the training of medical residents in surgery. In this paper, the impact of using virtual reality simulator training orthopedic surgeons is discussed. We have designed and developed a surgical training system called Virtual Surgical Environment (VSE). The initial focus of the scope of the VSE is limited to a process called Less Invasive Stabilization System (LISS) surgery; LISS surgery is a specific orthopedic surgery process which is used in patients who have fractures on the human femur. The VSE system architecture consisted of various modules. User interaction manager module helped synchronize the interaction between the user and the computer. Surgical manager module coordinated the interaction between various modules and the user. There were other modules like collision detection module, tracking module, visualization module, position training module and surgical mode selector module. In addition to these modules, the simulation also had an alert system to monitor the progress of the surgery. The avatar module was also incorporated in the system which assisted the user to learn the surgical steps and assembly steps based on a graphical avatar and audio interaction. An integrated team of engineering and medical students were involved in this innovative study to understand and throw more light on the impact of such learning environments involving the use of virtual reality and simulation technologies. The validation study was conducted in the department of orthopedic surgery, Paul L. Foster School of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas. The study was conducted with a group of surgeons and medical residents. Two sets of tests were conducted in the study at an interval of six months. The study consisted of participants from both medical and engineering field. The collected data from the study showed that the use of simulation based virtual environment proved to be effective in improving the understanding of LISS plating surgery of medical and engineering students.

Keywords:

Virtual reality, simulation, surgery.