Competitive Advantages
- Help increase surgical competence thus better surgical outcome
- Simulator provides disease/patient specific prototype
- Ability to help surgeons perform high risk operation with adequate practice
Summary
Healthcare simulation is an advancing field that has been shown to be a superior educational modality. Craniofacial osteotomies represent a class of procedures in plastic surgery with the highest risk of morbidity and mortality. In this invention, a model or a “simulation,” of a particular portion of the anatomy is provided and a trainee can practice performing a surgical procedure prior to attempting the procedure on a living patient. This method uses axial imaging data to design the simulation and also allows the model to be easily redesigned to represent disease-specific anatomy and even patient-specific anatomy to improve the simulation experience. This form of training can result in increased surgical competence, decreased medical errors, and ultimately improved patient care.
The above image is a side perspective view of a craniofacial simulator, fabricated using a three-dimensional (3D) printer.
Desired Partnerships:
- License
- Sponsored Research
- Co-Development