Virtual reality has enabled surgeons to train on procedures without risk to patients. However, the feedback surgical trainees receive is delayed, subjective, and qualitative, thereby lacking support for rapid acquisition of skill. This project will enhance surgical performance and training by providing performance feedback using touch-based cues that convey movement quality and strategies rather than task outcomes like procedure time. This will allow trainees to get feedback that is immediate and quantitative, and result in improved performance in difficult-to-train motor skills. Should this research prove successful, there is an opportunity to make meaningful changes in how surgeons are trained.
Co-robots in the endovascular surgical domain can take several forms, from a virtual reality simulator that mimics patient-specific procedures, enabling high-fidelity procedural rehearsal, to telesurgical systems that are used to navigate flexible robotic tools to anatomical locations. Such systems require significant skill to use and, in turn, a rigorous training protocol before certification to operate with the robot is granted. To date, training protocols rely on practice and subjective feedback by a skilled observer, and acquisition of skill on these systems can be inefficient. Furthermore, there is a lack of objective metrics of skill acquisition. This project will investigate the use of haptic feedback to trainees based on motion-based performance metrics, and will evaluate the potential role of this feedback modality during performance and training for simulated and robotic endovascular surgical tasks. In particular, the project will evaluate the benefit of providing specific performance feedback that highlights task strategies in the motion space, and the effect of providing such directed feedback on learning and retention of the task.
