Immersive Virtual Reality of Endoscopic and Open Spine Surgery Training

Simulation in surgical education provides trainees with an opportunity to acquire or retain skills. Skill in spine surgery may be defined as technical or non-technical - procedural knowledge and understanding. As trainees begin to acquire skill, task recall gradually improves until it is autonomous. Fitts and Posner described a well-recognized skill acquisition from novice to levels of expertise in this manner [1]. The ultimate goal of a simulator is to provide training scenarios that graduate a trainee to replicate a skill or task to a level of proficiency in a clinical environment. This skill transfer, or transfer validity, of a simulator is dependent on the inherent capabilities or simulator traits, as well as the circumstances and temporality of its use. Research into the effectiveness of simulator training shows that initial and incremental improvements eventually plateau [2]. The ability of the simulator to provide efficient and effective training correlative to real-world experiences defines the simulator’s transfer effectiveness of skills [3].