3D web based surgical training through comparative analysis

Experienced surgeons mostly face fewer complications and have more control precision in a surgical procedure than the novice trainees. The residents and novice students (trainees) are trained through watch-and-learn basis during real surgeries performed by the experienced surgeons (attending physicians). The human patient simulators are also used for training in so many medical fields including surgery. Plus, several 3D e-learning portals are used for surgical training to boost the learning performance of the trainees. Even though there are many tools and methods used in surgical training which provide extensive hands-on training experience to trainees, they still require suggestions, guidance and surgical maneuvering techniques from experienced surgeons to perform a complex surgery. But the current training methods and tools are constrained due to the limited availability of experienced surgeons in training rooms. The existing e-learning systems provide a simple 3D simulation of the surgery with less interactive features and almost no real-time comments from experienced surgeons. In contrast to the existing 3D e-learning portals, we propose a real-time interactive 3D web based environment that will allow the trainees to compare their surgical procedures in training to that of the experienced surgeons through a website built on WebGL and X3D frameworks. We also propose a new cloud computing architecture to reduce the resource usage on the client-side and optimize the real-time updates through WebGL. The proposed architecture will be able to receive real-time updates from trainees and experienced surgeons. As a precedent of our research in surgical training, we show a real-time simulation of intubation procedure which was built using the X-ray computed tomography (CT scan) with intubation simulator. We measure some important parameters in surgical training like angle of the surgical tool and distance between the tool and softer body part in the intubation path. Finally, we discuss the future direction of our research and optimization of the current design, and deployment in a surgical training environment.