Innovative podiatry practice: an immersive VR surgery simulation with bimanual haptic interaction

Researchers and medical experts devised a virtual reality (VR) force feedback system to simulate ingrown toenail removal as a stepping-stone towards a new, immersive form of learning material. The fusion of VR and haptic technologies is an innovative approach to stimulate visual and kinesthetic human senses for learning engagement.

Our bimanual haptic feedback system, tuned with the advice of experts, allows users to physically interact with a 3D deformable virtual foot and perform surgery with various tools, tackling the shortcomings of existing surgical simulations tools in a portable system. The graphic and haptic rendering techniques to simulate each step of the surgical procedure are described.

The usability and effectiveness were tested with 37 participants, including both podiatric medical students and non-medical students. Medical students improved completion time in all surgical tasks by over 160%. Statistical analysis indicates a significant difference in skill of medical students and non-medical students to establish a baseline correlation between performance and experience suggesting preliminary system usability.

Post-simulation assessment techniques provide insight into necessary improvement areas before launching comparative learning impact study in the future. Nonetheless, the results show a promising direction for using our developed system to improve ingrown toenail removal skills.