The McGill Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Simulator (MLIHS)
The MLIHS was created from low cost, readily available materials. It is an anatomically accurate representation of the inguinal anatomy that can be used to simulate both transabdominal preperitoneal (TAPP) and totally extraperitoneal (TEP) hernia repairs. Experienced surgeons found the simulator very useful for training and assessment.
The Hernia Simulator instruction kit:
download video with instructions (535 Mb, 19 min)
download zip file with materials and dimensions guide (pdf/jpeg)
Surgical Abdominal Wall (SAW)
The surgical abdominal wall model is used to simulate laparoscopic ventral hernia repair (LVHR). It is made from low-cost, readily available material, and is easy to assemble. The simulator aims to educate learners on anatomical relationships, procedural steps, and mesh sizing and fixation techniques.
Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS)
The FLS program teaches technical skill exercises to surgical residents and surgeons with the goal of improving laparoscopic ability. Our team at McGill has developed the manual skills component, called MISTELS. It consists of 5 tasks performed in a physical simulator that were proven to correlate with improved intraoperative performance. The system has been shown to be valid and reliable, and is now widely used across North America.
Fundamentals of Endoscopic Surgery (FES)
Fundamentals of Endoscopic Surgery (FES) is a program developed by SAGES in collaboration with our team at McGill. It aims to assess knowledge and skills in flexible gastrointestinal endoscopy. The technical skills component uses the Simbionix GI Mentor II virtual reality simulator that can simulate upper GI endoscopies.
The Fundamental Use of Surgical Energy(TM) initiative was conceived and initiated in 2010 by then SAGES president-elect Steven Schwaitzberg. He recognized that surgeons have a very rudimentary understanding of the physics behind the surgical energy devices they use every day in the operating room. As such, they were, and still are, placing their patients at risk. Every year there are approximately 400 OR fires and 40,000 thermal injuries, with many more that were likely go unreported. We coined the project “FUSE.”
The Task Force, initially led by Daniel Jones, Liane Feldman, and Pascal Fuchshuber, recruited experts in surgical energy and the associated risks across many disciplines: anesthesia, gynecology, urology, bariatrics, colorectal surgery, general surgery, hepatobiliary surgery, flexible endoscopy and very importantly – nursing . The mantra became “energy injuries are team failures.” One of the initial challenges was that there was no textbook to turn to. So the Task Force authored the “SAGES Manual on the Fundamental Use of Surgical Energy (FUSE)” by Springer, 2013. This paperback has become the “go- to” reference in our field. (source) All FUSE articles listed at https://www.fuseprogram.org/about/fuse-elsewhere/
ProMIS
ProMIS, designed by Haptica, is the first hybrid laparoscopic simulator. The trainer can assess the learner by evaluating the time taken, the path length, and the efficiency of movements. Feedback is offered immediately after each task.
Low-Cost Simulator for Training and Evaluation of Flexible Endoscopic Skills
This low-cost simulator is designed (by David Berger Richardson) to allow surgical trainees to develop the fundamental skills of flexible endoscopy. These skills include retroflexion, navigation and loop reduction, mucosal evaluation and instrumentation.
