Evaluation of augmented reality technology in global urologic surgery

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced opportunities for surgical skill sharing between high-income and low to middle-income countries. Augmented reality (AR) technology allows mentors in one country to virtually train a mentee in another country during surgical cases without international travel. We hypothesize that AR technology is an effective live surgical training and mentorship modality. Three senior urologic surgeons in the US and UK worked with four urologic surgeon trainees across the continent of Africa using AR systems. Trainers and trainees individually completed post-operative questionnaires evaluating their experience. Trainees rated the quality of virtual training as equivalent to in-person training in 83% of cases (N = 5 of 6 responses). Trainers reported the technology's visual quality as “acceptable” in 67% of cases (N = 12 of 18 responses). The audiovisual capabilities of the technology had a “high” impact in the majority of the cases. AR technology can effectively facilitate surgical training when in-person training is limited or unavailable. •The global pandemic exposed the need for alternatives to in-person surgical training.•Augmented reality technology facilitates remote global surgical skill sharing between established mentor and mentee teams.•Augmented reality technology is an effective supplement to in-person surgical training.