Towards immersive virtual reality (iVR): a route to surgical expertise

Surgery is characterized by complex tasks performed in stressful environments. To enhance patient safety and reduce errors, surgeons must be trained in environments that mimic the actual clinical setting. Rasmussen's model of human behavior indicates that errors in surgical procedures may be skill-, rule-, or knowledge-based. While skill-based behavior and some rule-based behavior may be taught using box trainers and ex vivo or in vivo animal models, we posit that multimodal immersive virtual reality (iVR) that includes high-fidelity visual as well as other sensory feedback in a seamless fashion provides the only means of achieving true surgical expertise by addressing all three levels of human behavior. While the field of virtual reality is not new, realization of the goals of complete immersion is challenging and has been recognized as a Grand Challenge by the National Academy of Engineering. Recent technological advances in both interface and computational hardware have generated significant enthusiasm in this field. In this paper, we discuss convergence of some of these technologies and possible evolution of the field in the near term.