Expanding Virtual Reality Opportunities in Surgical Training
Tags: vr, virtualreality
Published: 2022-09-01 10:15:29

In order to train residents to be skilled surgeons, it is essential that they practice their skills in the real world. However, this comes with a risk to patients. In the medical field, it is common, to the point it is expected, that residents make mistakes at some point in their training that cost lives. With virtual reality, however, it may be possible to prevent some lives from being lost in high-risk surgical procedures and train meticulous, skilled surgeons of the future. Through virtual reality development engineers, programmers, and doctors can work together to save lives. The main challenge in the healthcare industry is insufficient skills in new surgeons. 

According to a study by the University of Michigan in 2017, thirty percent of surgeons who have completed their residency were unable to perform surgery independently without the guidance of an experienced surgeon. The seventy percent of surgeons who could operate independently after residency likely could not perform every procedure within their specialty skillfully considering the immense number of complex surgeries that exist. Further, with the way that medical training is currently structured, a surgeon is not experienced enough for complex cases until several years into their career. This is largely due to the unchanging structure of medical training in the healthcare industry. Despite the remarkable advancements in medical technology in the past few decades, the methods used to train surgical residents have not changed much. Medicine has improved in ways that allow us to perform complex surgical procedures, yet the methods used to prepare surgical students to do so successfully have not been adapted. 

Moreover, there currently is not a uniform way of training surgeons. Some surgical residents are assigned to perform numerous hip arthroplasty whereas other residents may rarely practice this procedure. This system lacks the standardization necessary to ensure that each surgical resident has a sufficient practice in several different surgical procedures under the guidance of an attending. It is essential to thoroughly train surgical residents considering the impact it has on the survival rates of patients. In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine found that bariatric surgeons with lower skills had a mortality rate five times higher than those with higher skills. To improve this statistic, the healthcare industry must address the inconsistencies of its surgical training. In addition, surgeons often are not able to practice new surgical techniques after learning them. Many surgeons attend conferences to learn to use new medical technologies. 

According to the [Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/), surgeons may not have an opportunity to practice this procedure for four to six months until they encounter a patient who requires the procedure. In that time, the surgeon may be rusty on the procedure and forced to improvise on the patient. This likely contributes to the estimated seven million patients worldwide who die per year from surgical complications. Surgeons need the opportunity to practice their skills in a risk-free environment to ensure they are best prepared when there is a life in their hands. These challenges will only continue to worsen as the world’s population increases and the surgeon shortage occurs. 

Specifically, the Association of American Medical Colleges projects that there will be 23,000 fewer surgeons in the United States by 2032, which would greatly strain hospitals. This is where virtual reality can greatly improve surgical training. Virtual reality in healthcare offers a method to provide hands-on practice to surgical residents, as well as experienced surgeons, to learn skills and improve decision-making without the risk to patients. With PrecisionOS or Osso VR medical software on virtual reality headsets, it is possible to closely mimic the environment of the operating room. This is beneficial considering numerous studies have shown that, when information is learned in a specific setting, it is easier to later recall that information in the same setting. Rather than improvising, surgeons can practice a procedure repeatedly until they have mastered it. In fact, one study found that surgical residents using virtual reality to study did thirty-eight percent more steps correctly in a given procedure and performed the surgery twenty percent faster. Surgeons, both new and experienced, can walk into the operating room with confidence. 

The second solution virtual reality provides is that it can be used at any time, anywhere. This offers surgical residents the opportunity to practice their skills virtually anywhere, even if they are not at the hospital. For example, a surgical resident could prepare for an upcoming surgery at home with virtual reality, refining their decision-making skills and perfecting their technique. Despite practicing at home or in an empty room at the hospital, virtual reality technology can create a realistic operating room for surgical residents to practice navigating. As a result, surgical residents will be better prepared before performing surgeries and more confident in front of patients and their attendings. Further, many surgical residency programs were forced to cancel elective surgeries at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. With virtual reality, surgical residents can continue to learn these important procedures when unexpected events overwhelm hospitals. 

It is without a doubt that as much practice as possible is preferable, especially when the life of a human being is at risk. The third solution virtual reality provides is an [adaptable learning method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_learning). Virtual reality technology can be updated and fine-tuned to allow surgeons to practice virtually any procedure in personalized settings. Surgeons who learn a new technique that requires technology or equipment their hospital lacks can practice it through virtual reality. Further, an added benefit is that virtual reality technology is a cheaper alternative to practicing surgeries on simulation manikins, which can cost up to 60,000 dollars for the most sophisticated models. 

Rather than spending tens of thousands of dollars on a manikin equipped with technology to practice complex procedures, the healthcare industry can offer a virtual reality option for surgical training. In fact, the Musculoskeletal Institute at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine has started offering virtual reality headsets rather than cadavers to teach students procedures, which they found to be a cost-effective and faster alternative. Virtual reality offers an effective alternative to many of the traditional learning methods in the healthcare industry, reducing the pressure of learning high-risk procedures. 

The resources surgeons can access and skills they can practice with virtual reality will only increase as the virtual reality technology improves. Virtual reality should be more widespread in surgical training because it serves as a hands-on, on-demand, and adaptable solution to address the issues of skills deficiency in surgeons and unstandardized surgical residency programs. Although virtual reality is used in some healthcare settings to train surgeons, the healthcare industry should make utilizing this technology more common to fast-track and improve surgical training. It is vital that the healthcare industry uses this opportunity to further intertwine medicine and technology; it could save lives.