Watch the Surgery Simulation video
Will you help train today’s neurosurgeons to save more lives?
The issue
Neurosurgery is demanding and a patient’s quality of life post-surgery is closely linked to the surgeon’s skills and experience. Neurosurgeons traditionally develop their skills over many years with training models and patients. However, reductions in surgical training time, increasing specialisation of surgical training and ethical issues are challenging the development of tomorrow’s neurosurgeons. To ensure neurosurgeons are equipped with the best possible skills, new training methods are required.
Our solution
At The University of Nottingham, we have developed a virtual-reality prototype neurosurgery simulator, which simulates the look and feel of performing surgery. This allows trainees or surgeons to replicate complex operations on a computer model of an organ. Additional work is needed to develop this prototype into a product for the global medical industry. Key developments include extending the range and complexity of the operations that can be simulated and integrating software to assess the surgeon’s skills. By combining the University’s engineering, computer science and physics expertise with surgical input from the Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, we are uniquely placed to become a world leader in neurosurgery simulation.
Our impact
Enhancing neurosurgical skills through surgery simulation will improve patient outcomes and save lives worldwide. Development of our portable neurosurgery simulation system will improve the competence and confidence of surgeons and trainees. Not only will it result in better surgical training, planning and delivery, surgery simulation will reduce reliance on training models and offer substantial savings to the NHS. Philanthropic funding will enable our prototype system to be developed into a medical training device capable of simulating a range of complex surgical procedures in one of medicine’s most exacting fields, significantly improving patient quality of life.
What will your Impact be?
Your support for Surgery Simulation will accelerate the translation of novel research into a revolutionary medical training device to influence surgical training and assessment. The success of this project has the potential to have a global impact on neurosurgical training and patient quality of life.
Quotes
Neurosurgical training is usually ‘on the job’, which is a harrowing experience for both patient and surgeon. A simulator will allow us to learn by repetition or rehearsals before taking the patient to the operating theatre – rather like pilots spending many hours training on flight simulators before taking to the skies.
Michael Vloeberghs, Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Nottingham.
Simulators
reduce errors and make surgery much safer.
Sir Liam Donaldson, England's chief medical officer (2009)