Is using guinea pigs a thing of the past?
Wired weighs in on the ever-improving field of surgical simulators in its August issue. The obvious point of the story is that virtual reality is finally enabling us to take the guinea pig out of trial and error; any mistakes made by those in training will result in a failed grade, or a do-over, as opposed to the possibly nightmarish side effects that come with botched surgery.
A temporal bone surgery simulator at the Ohio Supercomputer Center.
(Credit: Ohio Supercomputer Center)Also--and this reminds me of the main difference between playing poker on my computer versus at a table--virtual surgery happens a lot faster. With a strong cup of coffee and enough RAM, a surgeon-in-training could perform multiple heart surgeries in virtually (ha ha) one sitting.
But I see a trend emerging that the Wired article failed to hit on: virtual surgery has a place for gamers, not just professionals. Would I like to try my hand at brain surgery? Absolutely. Learn to mend a broken bone? Of course. And I'm not even (much of) a gamer. I discovered this potential cross-section of surgeons and gamers while watching virtual surgery videos on YouTube, and noticed commenters asking where they could get or play these surgery games.
Two possible scenarios--both equally entertaining--might ensue. More gamers will suddenly have useful medical skills at their disposal, while more surgeons will (perhaps inadvertently) hone their "gaming" skills. What if, when looking for a doctor, you could check his or her Surgery Simulator Score?
Yes, this sounds--and might also be--totally ridiculous, but wouldn't you want to know the virtual surgery score of the person about to open up some part of your body and try to make it all better? That just might mean a lot more than a good reference.
Elizabeth Armstrong Moore is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Ore. She has contributed to Wired magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, and public radio. Her semi-obscure hobbies include unicycling, slacklining, hula-hooping, scuba diving, billiards, Sudoku, Magic the Gathering, and classical piano. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
- by Dr_Zinj August 13, 2009 12:43 PM PDT
- You know high school biology and lab classes really do a disservice kids in that they promote the idea that we're all the same inside. In actuality, people's anatomy only matches the text books in about 40% of the cases. The other 60% have some sort of variation from missing organs, multiple organs, oddly shaped or out of position organs, mirror imaging (everything is swapped right for left or rarely front to back). Of course knowing that, you can then program those variations into the simulator too.
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- by knowles2 August 13, 2009 2:50 PM PDT
- Yes and also using MRI scanners to produce a 3d image of the patent before hand it could also be possible for doctors to practice the operation on the virtual patent before the surgery proper begins and give more accurate survival rates and make sure they have the right approach and the right tools on hand also have back in place ready to go.
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(5 Comments)I predict that this especially for long and complicated surgery will become standard procedure.