This article was taken from the August 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Complex surgeries -- such as a 28-step cleft palate repair -- take years for novice surgeons to master. Now they can practise all they want, without risking patients.
Touch Surgery is a simulation app developed by London-based Kinosis. It gives trainee surgeons instructions for 25 procedures -- from open appendectomies to knee arthroscopies. "Operating on a patient is not the best way to learn surgery," says Jean Nehme (below), a former plastic surgeon and cofounder of Kinosis. "It's not just about cutting, it's about knowing what to cut."
The medical app breaks down surgeries into step-by-step procedures. An interactive simulation takes you through the steps -- and then tests your knowledge. "It allows surgeons to get a level of competence where they know exactly what to do in the operating room," says Nehme, whose team also includes cofounders and surgeons Andre Chow and Sanjay Purkayastha, and head of content Ziah Fogel, a former technical director at Pixar who has worked on movies including Finding Nemo.
Touch Surgery claims 80,000 users, 40 per cent of whom are patients understanding the procedure they are about to undertake.
It is already being integrated into the medical curriculum at US universities such as Duke and Stanford. Kinosis is also developing a virtual operating theatre for the Oculus Rift. "The graphics will be cinematic. We're developing the most anatomically and pathologically correct human body out there," says Nehme.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
