IRVINE, CA, November 21, 2019 – Dan Lejerskar, Founder of EON Reality, today called for medical schools to consider using AR and VR in surgical training at the Digital Healthcare Transformation Conference in Denver, Colorado.
The presentation was highlighted by published statistics in the Annals of Surgery which suggest that 30 percent of graduating residents were unable to operate independently and a similar study reporting that close to 69 percent of the surgical procedures were performed less than 5 times by graduating residents who were expected to possess full competence.
“The problem of the lack of training is further exacerbated by the growing complexity of medical procedures and the increasing number of advanced medical devices used for surgery,” Lejerskar said.
Lejerskar foresees VR and AR playing an important role to bridge the competence gap in surgical training. He points to the success of the ophthalmology training simulator EON Reality developed with Loyola University in Chicago.
To measure the learning effectiveness, medical students and residents were polled on their level of confidence in independently performing a pupillary examination. After using the simulator training, the study indicated that 94 percent of residents were confident in performing a pupillary examination, compared to 47 percent before. The results were greater in the medical student population, with 97 percent indicating confidence compared to 3 percent before. The study concluded that VR-based medical training can shorten the time to competency for critical techniques.
“VR and AR are incredible tools for learning, and present iterative opportunities for student to learn and relearn in no risk environment,” Lejerskar says. “The layers of medical complications that one can simulate in VR and AR unlocks many scenarios that a resident will encounter in his lifetime. By the time the graduating resident is actually at the operating table, the patient and their family can rest easy knowing they are in safe, well trained hands.”
About EON Reality
EON Reality is the world leader in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) knowledge transfer for industry and education. EON Reality’s success is tied to its belief that knowledge is a human right and should be available, accessible, and affordable for every human on the planet. To carry this out, EON Reality, since 1999, has developed the solutions such as EON-XR, a collection of programs allowing teachers, trainers, and other users to create and deliver AR and VR lessons and content without any previous coding or development experience. EON Reality’s global app development network, with twenty-two locations worldwide, has created the world’s leading AR/VR library for knowledge transfer with over 8,000 applications. Over 40 million people worldwide have downloaded these applications. For further information, visit www.eonreality.com.
