Communications of the ACM
a Receives $1.9m Nsf Award to Test Computer-Assisted Surgical Training
University of Arizona Distinguished Professor Jerzy Rozenblit demonstrates his Computer-Aided Surgical Trainer system.
Credit: University of Arizona
University of Arizona researchers are using a $1.9-million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to develop a computerized surgical training tool that provides haptic and augmented reality guidance for laparoscopic surgery trainees. The Computer-Aided Surgical Trainer (CAST) will help trainees practice avoiding surgical collisions. When a trainee using CAST moves the instrument toward a "no-fly zone," vibrational or other haptic signals will alert the user to take a different course, while onscreen graphics display the trajectory of surgical instruments.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Henry Fuchs is building additional augmented-reality image-processing technology for CAST that will illustrate holographic images of organs and vessels in real time. To test the system's effectiveness as a training tool, up to 100 University of Arizona medical students, residents, and surgeons will be trained on the device beginning in 2019. The pilot study will be the first objective, data-based assessment of how well computerized surgical training teaches basic tasks.
"Nobody is developing haptic guidance technology like we are," says University of Arizona professor Jerzy Rozenblit. "We anticipate the CAST system will speed up learning, reinforce good habits and techniques and discourage bad ones and, ultimately, lead to better surgical outcomes and improved patient safety."
From University of Arizona
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