SimCEC: A Collaborative VR-Based Simulator for Surgical Teamwork Education

Computers in Entertainment (CIE) – Special Issue: Deep Learning, Ubiquitous and Toy Computing. Published online April 3rd, 2018. doi:10.1145/3177747

Paulo Pavia, Liliane Machado, Ana Maria Valenca, Thiago Batista, Ronei Moraes.

Abstract

Traditionally, the evaluation of surgical procedures in virtual reality (VR) simulators has been restricted to their individual technical aspects disregarding the procedures carried out by teams. However, some decision models have been proposed to support the collaborative training evaluation process of surgical teams in collaborative virtual environments. The main objective of this article is to present a collaborative simulator based on VR, named SimCEC, as a potential solution for education, training, and evaluation in basic surgical routines for teams of undergraduate students. The simulator considers both tasks performed individually and those carried in a collaborative manner. The main contribution of this work is to improve the discussion about VR simulators requirements (design and implementation) to provide team training in relevant topics, such as users’ feedback in real time, collaborative training in networks, interdisciplinary integration of curricula, and continuous evaluation.