Virtual Reality Simulation of High Tibial Osteotomy for Medical Training

Abstract

The quality of surgical operation is very important for the patients’ safety and the reduction of aftereffects after surgery. To do this, practicing surgical operations is also increasingly important. Due to the development of hardware and simulation techniques such as virtual reality (VR), VR simulators have been developed as a method to train surgeons and medical students majoring in surgery. In addition, controllers that support various kinds of haptic feedback have also been developed for a more realistic and immersive user experience. In this study, we introduce a morphable haptic controller that provides geometric and tactile feedback to users and propose a VR simulation system using this controller. This system is designed to perform a high tibial osteotomy in a virtual environment. The morphable haptic controller attached to the system through the input mapping daemon provides the senses of multiple surgical instruments used in the simulation. As a result, the haptic controller achieves an outstanding result through an actual interaction between surgical tools and the surgical sites. We verified that this was effective in surgery training through orthopedic surgeons.