Royal College of Surgeons accredits Fundamental Surgery

Fundamental Surgery’s Total Hip Replacement (PosteriorApproach) training simulation has received Continuing Professional Development(CPD) accreditation from the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

With this accreditation, the simulation is confirmed as anactivity that demonstrates sufficient educational value to contribute toindividual surgeons’ CPD, for which six CPD points can be claimed.

CPD is set by the General Medical Council (GMC) as an activityoutside of postgraduate training that demonstrates surgeons are continuing toimprove and practice their skills and performance. The Royal College ofSurgeons of England accredits activities ranging from educational days andconferences that are in line with the GMC’s guidelines and the number of pointsfrom each activity counts towards each trainee’s annual CPD points.

To maintain professional standards, surgeons must accrue 50CPD points a year (250 over a 5 year revalidation cycle).

The Fundamental Surgery platform was launched in August2018. It combines virtual reality (VR) with cutting-edge haptics to create ascalable ‘flight simulator’ experience for trainee and qualified surgeons,allowing them to experience and navigate the same visuals, sounds and feelingsthey would during a real surgical procedure.

What sets Fundamental Surgery apart from other solutions is that it is designed to be equipment agnostic, compatible with any laptop, VR headset or haptic device, enabling it to be delivered at a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, its remote data analytics and data dashboard covering surgical skills and knowledge provide invaluable insight into surgical capability and education progression.

While other simulations are limited to visual and audio interactions, Fundamental Surgery uses HapticVRTM, its proprietary technology that adds a real-time sense of touch. Surgical trainees can feel the movement and interaction of tissue, muscle and bone as they would in an actual procedure within a submillimeter of accuracy of resistance. Fundamental Surgery has a library of tools and tissue variants that mimic real life sensations that have been calibrated by a team of surgeons and KOLs.

Richard Vincent, CEO and founder of FundamentalVR, said,“With Fundamental Surgery, we have developed a completely safe and realisticteaching environment for surgeons to learn and hone their skills combiningvirtual reality with tactile feedback that is so important for developing themuscle memory associated with different procedures.”

The platform currently supports a range of orthopedicprocedures, including the Total Hip Replacement Posterior Approach (P-THR)simulation that received the CPD accreditation. The P-THR simulation supportsusers in maintaining and developing their understanding of relevant anatomy,pre-operative planning and post-operative patient care, as well as offering ahaptically-enabled simulation experience and intra-operative decision making.

The Fundamental Surgery platform is currently deployed in anumber of different medical institutions. Most recently, St George’s Hospital, London,deployed Fundamental Surgery within their simulation center. This installationenables anytime access for medical trainees to use the education platform, tomonitor progress and help individual users continue to grow their skill sets.Fundamental Surgery is also deployed at the Mayo Clinic and UCLA in the US,UCLH in the UK and Sana in Germany.