Ethicon adopt LapAR for UK wide surgical training

Ethicon, part of Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies, has become the latest to adopt LapAR, the innovative high fidelity laparoscopic trainer from Inovus Medical.

Ethicon has made significant contributions to surgery for more than 100 years from creating the first sutures, to revolutionizing surgery with minimally invasive procedures and has now integrated LapAR into its UK-wide professional education programmes to evolve the provision of hands-on practical skills training.

The decision was based on the added value this unique augmented reality (AR) simulator brings to surgical education and training. This innovative approach to AR simulation allows the use of any surgical instrument with the simulator, making it the ideal platform for Ethicon’s professional education agenda. The LapAR take home offers a scalable distance learning platform that allows performance capture and debrief to be completed remotely.

The simulators are to be used to deliver remote, hands on, high fidelity laparoscopic skills training across a range of surgical training grades and specialities. This comes at an important time for surgical training in the UK which has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The LapAR offers trainees the ability to connect with senior surgeons and maintain and progress their laparoscopic skills at a time when traditional, in person courses are still not able to run as normal.

Mr Fevzi Shakir, Consultant Gynaecologist at the Royal Free Hospital and Ethicon faculty member said, “The addition of LapAR to Ethicon’s national training programmes has brought the future of surgical training to today’s trainees. The hybrid augmented reality (AR) nature of the system provides an inimitable combination of real feel haptics and performance tracking delivered on a portable box trainer. An additional added value is the ability to use any instrument type with the simulator, this has been particularly beneficial to the Ethicon training programmes.”

Glenn Cooper, Chairman, Inovus Medical commented, “As we are operating in an era of cutting-edge technology the advanced features of LapAR allows for more immersive and enriching ways to share, record and review surgical performance and pre-operative warm up in the simulated and clinical settings. Healthcare professionals are looking to next-generation technology to drive productivity and advance surgical excellence and ultimately improve patient care through training programmes such as those offered by Ethicon”.

The disruption to surgical care and, by proxy, surgical training, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how traditional approaches to surgical training need to change to allow the modern day, trainee to deliver the best care possible. AR-based distance learning is becoming increasingly accepted as the solution to drive that change, offering value-based healthcare simulation with the potential to eliminate travel costs, save time and importantly offer an affordable option to previous ‘VR’ based technologies. Through their adoption of LapAR, Ethicon have joined a number of forward-thinking early adopters in helping shape that change well beyond the pandemic.