Role of Simulators in Robotic Surgery

The recent growth of robot-assisted surgery has led to call for better training of future surgeons. This chapter discusses the need for simulation-based training and the role of the RoSS (Robotic Surgical Simulator), a new virtual-reality simulator. RoSS consists of a mock-up of the master console of most widely used such system, the da Vinci Surgical System, and is accompanied by a virtual-reality curriculum to train in the fundementals of robot-assisted surgery. Intial results from two studies show encouraging face and content validity for the simulator; 90% of a cohort of expert robotic surgeons felt that the simulator was excellent or somewhat close to the touch and feel of the da Vinci console. Content validity of the simulator received 90% approval in some cases. This led to the conclusion that RoSS has the potential to become part of the training program for robot-assisted surgery.