A Network-Based Virtual Reality Simulation Training Approach for Orthopedic Surgery

The focus of this article is on the adoption of immersive and haptic simulators for training of medical residents in a surgical process called Less Invasive Stabilization System (LISS) plating surgery . LISS surgery is an orthopedic surgical procedure to treat fractures of the femur bone. Development of such simulators is a complex task which involves multiple systems, technologies, and human experts. Emerging Next Generation Internet technologies were used to develop the standalone on-line haptic-based simulator accessible to the students 24/7. A standalone immersive surgical simulator was also developed using HTC Vive. Expert surgeons played an important role in developing the simulator system; use cases of the target surgical processes were built using a modeling language called the engineering Enterprise Modeling Language (eEML) . A detailed study presenting the comparison between the haptic-based simulator and the immersive simulator has been also presented. The outcomes of this study underscore the potential of using such simulators in surgical training.