Houston hospital opens virtual surgical training center

The Methodist Hospital in Houston last week opened its Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation and Education (MITIE), a 35,000 square-foot interactive, simulation-based surgical training center created to help practicing physicians acquire skills including image-guided therapies and surgical robotics.

The Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation and Education (MITIE) incorporates a virtual hospital for recreating high-risk patient care environments, a procedural skills lab for hands-on training and a suite of 15 operating rooms for image-guided procedure research, robotic surgery and technology development, according to the hospital.

In MITIE, practicing surgeons and their teams can perform surgical procedures in a simulated operating room, note how human patient simulators are used to help medical teams rehearse complex procedures and perform cardiac and vascular procedures on a computer simulator.

As part of an investigational study, trainers can measure stress with a thermal camera to determine a trainee’s surgical expertise, the hospital noted.

 

 

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