SBIR Phase I: Open Vascular Surgical Training System for Skill Acquisition and Evaluation

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to streamline surgical training and reduce the burden of surgical complications by creating a device that can train and evaluate surgeons. The proposed project will demonstrate the feasibility of progressive skills education and quantitative assessment on a simulated open surgery system. This project will develop a high-fidelity modular system and synthetic vasculature to effectively train surgeons in open vascular surgery. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will advance development of an educational tool to support surgical training. The device must provide progressive skills education, expose users to a comprehensive range of open surgical procedures, and provide objective feedback metrics. The proposed research will first investigate the feasibility of developing a variety of simulated vascular components, including those with abnormalities, and subsequently integrating them into the benchtop system. The synthetic training models will be evaluated by practicing surgeons using a bipolar scaling method. The mechanical properties of the synthetic vascular tissue will be measured and compared to live tissue. This project will additionally develop components to measure surgical performance. The metrics will be evaluated in a pilot study of a panel of experienced and inexperienced surgeons. The anticipated results are a synthetic vascular material with similar mechanical properties as live tissue, surgical models that are validated as realistic by a panel of expert surgeons, and a system with sensors and components that are capable of differentiating between user skill levels. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.