While traditional methods of surgical education remain valuable, recent technological and procedural advances require new educational approaches. The operating room can no longer be the only ideal classroom for acquiring basic skills, especially in newer video-based procedures for laparoscopic surgery, carotid stenting and endograft placement where the supervising surgeon has limited ability to physically guide the procedure or quickly correct mistakes.

The Emory Simulation, Training, and Robotics Center (ESTAR) offers significant opportunities to elevate skills and learn new surgical and medical techniques while mitigating the cost and risk of traditional instruction using animals or the clinical care environment. The process has been compared to simulation in flight training because it allows physicians to perform procedures before ever touching a patient.

ESTAR provides a variety of training scenarios. Such fundamental surgical skills as stitching can be practiced, with future surgeons experiencing the tactile sensations of performing an actual procedure while improving psychomotor skills. Highly advanced applications are available as well, including the interaction of computer programs with robotic simulation tools that can replicate unforeseen critical situations during medical procedures to assess emergency medical judgment.

By cooperating with various medical training programs at Emory, ESTAR's resources provide safe and relatively inexpensive ways to encounter groundbreaking procedures and technologies as well as new options for teaching and learning more familiar methods. Current simulation training programs include:

• The training of nurse midwives from the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing using a simulator which can deliver a cyberbaby every 90 seconds.
  
  
• A project with the Department of Urology validating a simulator for cystoscopic and laparoscopic procedures.
  
  
• Cardiothoracic surgery residents practicing advanced laparoscopic suturing skills.

For additional information on ESTAR, please contact 404.727.1540.

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