Innovative Surgical Training Tool Tested At Anne Arundel Medical

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Surgeons at Anne Arundel Medical Center have been testing a groundbreaking new gestural technology designed to improve communication among a surgical team during a laparoscopic procedure. In conjunction with researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the study revealed that when surgeons insert a small camera into the abdomen and watch their instruments' movements through a live video, they cannot touch the video display or mouse because their hands must remain sterile. Instead, they use verbal descriptions to communicate and the surgical trainees must decipher those verbal cues and execute them.

Now thanks to a new technology called the Virtual Pointer, which was developed by Helena Mentis, associate dean for academic programs and learning and associate professor of information systems at UMBC, the surgical trainer can point at the live video and draw on it without actually touching it. This allows the surgeon to educate the surgical trainee on how to perform the procedure.

"We found that, when using the system, not only did their cognitive load not increase, but they were actually able to perform more tasks than in the standard training," said Andrea Kleinsmith, assistant professor of information systems at UMBC.