Enhancing Acute Reconstructive Skills in Burn Surgery Through Virtual Simulation

Medical simulation has progressed to using sophisticated computerized systems such as virtual and augmented reality. Despite its widespread adoption across various specialties, its adoption in burn surgery remains limited. Consequently, we wish to report on the "Excision of an Unhealed Burn Wound" module on the Touch Surgery mobile application that simulates the tangential excision and reconstruction of a burn wound with a split-thickness skin graft. To ascertain their knowledge of the surgical management of an unhealed burn wound, 38 regional senior house officer trainees currently on a plastic surgery placement completed a multiple-choice test. The trainees then viewed a full demonstration of the "Excision of an Unhealed Burn Wound" burn surgery module, before repeating the multiple-choice test after 1 hour. The self-assessed knowledge of participants regarding the excision of a burn and skin graft procedure improved in 90% of cases. Similarly, knowledge of the different types of equipment used for burn surgery saw an improvement in 89.5% of cases. Additionally, 84.3% of participants reported improvement in their understanding of the principles of preparing and applying a split-thickness skin graft. All but one participant agreed that simulation is beneficial in teaching surgical procedures, with the lone participant providing no rationale. Despite the relative inability to provide trainees with hands-on experience using surgical instruments and the risk of constraining the user to a single, preferred operating technique, we feel that digital simulation offers a novel tool for educating trainees in burn surgery.