It has been about 20 years since the commercial use virtual reality (VR) surgical simulator was launched.

We have used VR surgical simulator for surgical education from early stage. At present, the weight of the VR simulator in current surgical education is lower than initially expected. This has been mainly due to the discord between the expectation for the functions of the VR simulator of the coaching surgeon and the actual use of the VR simulators without essential comprehension of simulation training. In addition, the focus of developers of the VR simulators has been besides the points.

In this article, we summarize the situation of VR simulator so far, and describe the future measures of surgical training using VR simulators more effectively from the view point of clinician.

View full abstract

Current auscultatory training is constructed by using simulated patients (SPs) and auscultatory training mannequins. Through this method can perform training with various biological sounds, it has several disadvantages: communication between patients and doctors is inconvenient in the training; lack of reality; movement and installation are difficult. We have proposed the system called EARS (Educational Augmented Reality auscultation System) which can reproduce cardiovascular and pulmonary sounds to SPs by using augmented reality technology. This system makes it possible to train medical interviews and auscultatory techniques to SPs. Conventional EARS has disadvantages that installation is complicated, limited to use of sitting position only, and malfunction may occur due to blocking of infrared light by occlusion. In this research, we produced stethoscope device integrating camera, infrared light source, synchronization circuit, wired voice communication circuit, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) panel. We also propose a method to detect the position of stethoscope in any posture of SPs. That make the new system easier to install and reduces the restriction on the posture. By evaluating the operational stability and positional detection accuracy comparing with the conventional EARS system, it is confirmed that the proposed system has significantly improved performance.

View full abstract

An anatomical model (manikin) that can be used for studying anatomy and training for surgery is required in the medical field. By stacking particles that are the same size as the cell, an anatomically accurate manikin would be produced. However, it is difficult to handle cell-sized particles, so we make a manikin by stacking particles with a diameter of 0.33 mm with controlled color and hardness. Manikin is made from two types of silicone oil, a pigment and a photocrosslinker. By irradiating ultraviolet light to silicone oil, silicone gel of any color and hardness would be made. First, a 0.33 mm thickness of transparent silicone gel sheet with dents arranged at intervals of 0.33 mm is produced. Next, a colored silicone oil is dropped into these dents and cured by ultraviolet light to produce a silicone gel sheet with colored particles. Finally, this silicone gel sheet is stacked to make a manikin. Since the hardness and color can be changed for each particle, the manikin is more accurately to the color and hardness of the human body. In this paper, the manikin material and modeling technique are proposed and confirmed by experiments.

View full abstract