Heart surgery simulator arrives in South Africa

from ITWeb Limited (enphasis added):

Medtronic product manager Rebecca Lai says the VCL is the only one of its kind in Africa and is one of 35 spread around the world, at 19 testing stations.

“The VCL was developed by Medtronic, in conjunction with Immersion Medical, in the US, who created the haptics technology to make the simulator more real,” explains Lai. “Currently, the simulator has 70% feedback quality.”

The simulator is a combination of a C-Arm scanner, a human dummy fitted with apparatus and software loaded with a number of cases to test the user. Lai adds that a number of the test cases used in the simulator were taken from real-life scenarios. The heart X-rays and MRI scans of the patients were copied and digitised into 3D images and animations that are included in the software for the simulator.

“The VCL offers real-time cardiovascular scenarios where the differentiating factor is the speed of which the user completes the procedures,” says Lai.