State-of-the-art simulated operating suite opens

Faculty of Medicine unveils cutting edge simulated operating suite <em> - News</em>

Tuesday 8 July 2008
By Colin Smith

An innovative operating theatre bringing medics and scientists together for training and research opened yesterday afternoon.

The Rector of Imperial College London, Sir Roy Anderson, and Lord Sainsbury, a philanthropist and member of the House of Lords who was previously a science minister, jointly opened the Faculty of Medicine's £500,000 Simulated Operating Suite.

The Suite is a replica of an operating theatre that will be used to train and assess staff in various medical fields including surgeons, nurses, paediatricians, anaesthetists and operating department assistants.

Based in the Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology at Imperial's St Mary's campus, the new facility integrates the state-of-the-art operating theatre with the latest technologies.

On the operating table is a computerised mannequin patient, physiologically similar to a human, which is controlled by an operator and computer behind a two-way mirror in a control room adjacent to the theatre.

The operator observes a surgical team, made up of an anaesthetist, anaesthetic nurse, operating surgeon, a surgeon's assistant, scrub nurse and circulating nurse, carrying out procedures on the mannequin.

The suite can also be used to simulate a number of emergency scenarios that can occur while a patient is under anaesthetic. These include uncontrolled muscular spasms that close the larynx, oxygen shortages in the body, and abnormal heartbeats.

During mock operations, the interactions between the surgical team are recorded using cameras and microphones. These recordings and the readings from the surgical equipment are all fed into a data recording device in the control room. This enables procedures to be played back and analysed in detail at debriefing sessions.

Professor Lord Darzi, who holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery at Imperial College London and is an honorary consultant at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said the facility would push forward vital multi-disciplinary training. He added:

"As technology improves it becomes more complex and it is essential that simulation-based training prepares surgeons and their teams for the future. We therefore need simulated environments like SOS to arm both trainees and consultants to practice and rehearse new complex scenarios for perfection."

Sir Roy Anderson added: "When we talk about surgical excellence, people often think first about the technical performance of the surgeon. And that of course is important. But communication, teamwork and leadership are just as essential. Without a group of people who work together like a well-oiled piece of high-tech machinery, any operation is at risk from human error.

"The Suite will help us strengthen connections not just between people, but also between the many disciplines we need in one place in order to perform effective operations."

At the opening ceremony, 60 guests including Lord Tugendhat, Chairman of the Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust, Professor Steve Smith, Principal of the Faculty of Medicine and Chief Executive of the Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust, and Lady Helen Hamlyn, whose philanthropic donations has helped to establish Imperial’s Hamlyn Centre of Surgical Robotics, watched a simulated procedure undertaken by a surgical team.

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