Surgeon-Authored Virtual Laparoscopic Adrenalectomy Module Is Judged Effective and Preferred Over Traditional Teaching Tools.

Objective: The study assesses user acceptance and effectiveness of a surgeon-authored virtual reality (VR) training module authored by surgeons using the Toolkit for Illustration of Procedures in Surgery (TIPS).

Methods: Laparoscopic adrenalectomy was selected to test the TIPS framework on an unusual and complex procedure. No commercial simulation module exists to teach this procedure.

Towards surgeon-authored VR training: the scene-development cycle.

Enabling surgeon-educators to themselves create virtual reality (VR) training units promises greater variety, specialization, and relevance of the units. This paper describes a software bridge that semi-automates the scene-generation cycle, a key bottleneck in authoring, modeling, and developing VR units. Augmenting an open source modeling environment with physical behavior attachment and collision specifications yields single-click testing of the full force-feedback enabled anatomical scene.

Enabling surgeons to create simulation-based teaching modules.

To broaden the use of simulation for teaching, in particular of new procedures and of low-volume procedures, we propose an environment and workflow that allows surgeon-educators create teaching modules. Our challenge is to make the simulation tools accessible, modifiable and sharable by users with moderate computer and VR experience. Our contribution is a workflow that promotes consistency between instructional material and measured criteria and makes the authoring process efficient, both for the surgeon, and for computer scientists supporting the simulation environment.