Simulation Surgery and Education

All of the models mentioned above and many others, including interactive virtual reality programs with visual, auditory and tactile real-time feedback, are not only useful for allowing a surgeon to make a more exact diagnosis of a condition and then practice a particular operative procedure before applying it to an actual patient, but also to instruct young resident surgeons in particular procedures without any ‘damage’ being done to the ‘patient’ when mistakes are made, as they invariably are. As more and more procedures are added to the database from the expert surgeons’ pooled experience, the teaching and learning process will become more dynamic as a moving picture, especially an interactive one, is certainly worth more than a thousand words. The solid models and computer-based 3-D images explored earlier in this section are equally invaluable in educating the patient, and also the patient’s family, and will also be a valuable tool in the education of the general public.