If a surgeon were going to operate on my brain, I would hope he or she had practiced in every conceivable way. The article here from Case Western Reserve University describes a virtual reality simutlation to train brain and heart surgeons. Including virtual training for surgeons is a growing practice.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if kids in high school and in lower grades could use these same tutorials? Too young? I don’t think so. Did you ever have a classmate — say in the sixth grade — who had decided long ago to become a surgeon? I think of my friend David, who did just that when we were students together at Crockett grade school in El Paso. He is a professor of orthopaedics and wrote the standard hand surgery textbook used in medical schools. I can tell you that by the sixth grade he would have been a whiz at the tutorial descibed in this above link.
February 21st, 2008 at 5:44 pm
P.S. I am turning 10 this July!!!
June 19th, 2008 at 1:21 am