As my syringe presses against the skin and muscle surrounding a patient鈥檚 knee joint, I feel a brief resistance. A gentle increase in pressure, though, and the needle pops through, ready to inject the drug. But this isn鈥檛 a real patient or syringe 鈥� they鈥檙e both virtual.
I am taking part in a training simulation created by a London-based firm called . It allows me to view my patient in virtual reality and perform knee surgery with a stylus that gives haptic feedback, so I can feel the different layers of tissue. The simulation is designed for surgeons who must learn how to properly inject a drug during surgery to .
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鈥淚t stays exactly where you inject it, so you need to put it in the right places,鈥� says FundamentalVR co-founder Richard Vincent. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what this system teaches them to do.鈥�
In the coming months, the simulation will be used in US hospitals by surgeons training to administer the drug during knee replacement surgery. This requires about 20 injections at six different stages.
The system runs on off-the-shelf equipment, which means it is more affordable than existing surgical simulators that require bespoke machines, such as those used to practise keyhole surgery. The company claims all the necessary hardware can be bought for less than 拢5000.
The simulated procedure is designed to work with a readily available high-end computer and an HTC Vive headset. Motors in the exert increasing resistance when the virtual syringe pushes against skin, muscle and bone.
Seeing a syringe
The stylus doesn鈥檛 look or feel like a syringe outside of the simulation, but that soon changes when you鈥檙e immersed, says the company鈥檚 other co-founder Chris Scattergood. 鈥淲e suddenly realised that when you鈥檙e in the VR, you might be holding it like a pen but you believe you鈥檙e holding a syringe 鈥� you鈥檙e seeing a syringe doing syringe stuff.鈥�
There are two buttons on the side of the stylus, one to inject the virtual drug and the other to withdraw the needle. The system knows the ideal injection pattern for the drug and gives surgeons a score based on how accurately they have administered it. A visual map shows how close they came to a perfect result.
The company also plans to make other simulations to teach a range of surgical techniques using the same hardware.
鈥淚n surgery, you can often feel things before you can see them,鈥� says , a surgeon at Pinnacle Orthopaedics in Marietta, Georgia, who advised on the design of the system.
, a surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, has also tried it. 鈥淚t works very well, it鈥檚 a nice model, very elegant,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t demonstrates the value of virtual reality in training.鈥�
In the future, says Ahmed, surgeons may benefit from more sophisticated haptic feedback that can deliver the sensation of temperature as well, for example. More realistic graphics could also help to heighten the sense of immersion.
