St George’s University Hospital Introduces VR Surgical Training Programme
St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has introduced VR simulators as part of the curriculum for the South West London Registrar Orthopaedic Training Programme.
The training programme uses virtual reality and a haptic simulation system for orthopaedic and spine surgery. The experience was created by UK based company FundamentalVR. It combines virtual reality (VR) with cutting-edge haptics to create a scalable ‘flight simulator’ experience for trainee and qualified surgeons, enabling users to experience as close to a real surgical procedure as possible, simulating the same sounds, visuals, and feedback.
“Our education platform has tremendous long – term potential for enhancing surgical training throughout the NHS, in the pursuit of better patient outcomes,” said Richard Vincent, CEO at FundamentalVR. “The implementation is further proof that our haptic simulations provide a virtual environment that can help provides access and aid training development.”
Omar Sabri, consultant at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and lead consultant on the integration into the program said: “We are thrilled to have integrated Fundamental Surgery into the GAPS Centre and to have also had the group of orthopaedic trainees go through the program, experiencing the Posterior Approach Total Hip Replacement (PTHR) on the machine for the first time.
“Through this integration, trainees can now demonstrate the skills they’ve learned by using this technology and have it reflected in their educational portfolio and Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Project. This along with the Royal College approval are just the start for Fundamental Surgery’s platform and the team’s effort to integrate it into all surgical training programs across the country.”