Ep. 39 High Fidelity Augmented Reality Surgical Simulation: Training to Perform with Dr. Elliot Street

In this episode, co-hosts Dr. Aaron Fritts and Dr. Diana Velazquez-Pimentel interview Dr. Elliot Street, co-founder of Inovus Medical, a medtech company whose goal is to revolutionize surgical training through headset-free, accessible augmented reality. The CE experience for this Podcast is powered by CMEfy - click here to reflect and earn credits: https://earnc.me/EzNnBd --- SHOW NOTES Dr. Street begins by sharing why he founded Inovus. His mission for the company is to become the world’s partner for surgical training. As a tennis player, he sees many similarities between athletic and surgical training, including the hours of muscle memory development required. He wanted to model surgical training in the way athletes are trained, including game intelligence, practice, gameday, and game tape review. At Inovus, surgical simulation training is treated as a continuum of needs. The continuum begins with pre-learning, a time when the learner gains surgical intelligence and understands the steps and anatomy of a surgery. For the next step, physical learning, they offer a portfolio of six laparoscopic simulators that can be used from anywhere in the world. They use natural haptics made of simulated soft tissues which they put into boxes that have laparoscopic ports. These can then be used with any laparoscopic device, including cold-cutting instruments and bipolar energy. They have 28 variants of soft tissue which allows surgeons to get exceptional real-life variety. They don’t use headsets for the virtual reality component, but rather a digital surgery platform that can project onto any laptop. The final two parts of the training continuum include intraoperative decision-making and objective measurement of performance. Inovus has data-capturing technology that allows you to evaluate your performance and use this to improve your approach. Overall, the company wants to deliver on three main objectives: accessibility, natural haptics, and augmented reality. Their technology is available for anyone to buy from their website, though they primarily sell to residency programs and device companies. Dr. Street aims to make Inovus technology a mainstay of surgical training all over the world. --- RESOURCES Inovus Medical: https://inovus.org/about-us