A Virtual Reality Based Surgical Simulation as an Alternative of Halal Surgical Trainings and Better Surgical Planning

Abstract

The growing of medical industries need cadaver as a part of full filling better understanding of the components of surgical competency in teaching surgical technical skills in safe and pedagogically efficient environment. However, majority of Muslim scholars argue that using cadaver for surgical trainings are not permissible (haram), thus to find alternative halal procedures replacing cadaver in surgical training are urgent. Moreover, the old approach of ‘see one do one, teach one’ is no longer acceptable to either the surgical profession or to the well-informed and demanding public. New tools have been developed for teaching and assessing technical skills outside the operating room using virtual reality simulation, which has been applied for many years with great success in many industries including aviation and the military. With software development, the simulators now enable users to perform complete procedures with the added simulation of rare anatomical variations and various pathological conditions. The interface of these high-fidelity systems enables the surgeon to ‘feel’ the tissue (haptic feedback). Although, the realism of these simulated procedures is still suboptimal and the high cost of virtual reality simulators, the advantages of the high-fidelity, high-cost systems have not yet been demonstrated and our studies have established the potential advantages of procedure-specific simulation. The research using phantom-omny haptic to enable surgeon to “feel, touch, and interact” with tissue, fluid, and bone during surgical procedures using PC based simulator.