A leading example of virtual reality for surgeons comes from the startup FundamentalVR. The U.K. company provides training, simulation and education for medical personnel using virtual and mixed reality in the medical. As well as the healthcare sector, the company also has offerings for the communications market.
The aim of FundamentalVR’s Fundamental Surgery platform is to combine cutting edge virtual reality experiences with haptic feedback (that is, based on the sense of touch). Haptic technology recreates the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user.
These elements come together to foster a close approximation of a real operating experience. The intention is to deevlop a safe, measurable and repeatable involvement with medical procedures.
As the video indicates the platform offers highly realistic hand-based interactions in an immersive training environments for trainee surgeons. According to The Verge, the newly launched system combines the HoloLens headset and the company’s software, along with a stylus connected to a standard-issue mechanical arm.
Discussing power of the technology, Richard Vincent, cofounder of Fundamental VR, told ZDNet: “”Surgery is about science, but also about art, and where there’s art, there’s opinion. Getting to a common standard where people agree what’s the right way to do that and on best practice, that took some time. Once we had got that, we were ready to start embracing some of the challenges of texture and tissue types and how those change throughout the procedure.”
The main alternative for surgeons in training is cadaveric training, and this can prove to be is expensive and it is not always practical in terms of the availability of bodies. In terms of the restrictions, one estimate indicates that more than 30 per cent of U.S. trainee surgeons are unable to perform operations independently by the time they graduate. For this reason, progress with the quality of virtual reality and the addition of haptic or kinesthetic communication helps to address an urgent medical training need.
