ORI was delighted to welcome third year BSc (Hons) Operating Department Practice students to the Virtual Reality Training Lab for a series of workshops last week. The workshops were the first step in a growing collaboration between ORI and Debora Almeida and her colleagues from the Operating Department Practice team.

Professor Tom Wainwright introduced the students to ORI and some key concepts in orthopaedic surgery at a lecture, before Shay Bahadori delivered four repeated workshops to smaller groups of students. In the workshops, Shay taught and demonstrated key aspects of hip and knee arthroscopy, knee arthroplasty, and robotic surgery by using ORI’s virtual reality simulators. The students then got hands on experience of trying surgery for themselves, with the aim of increasing their surgical skills and clinical knowledge of orthopaedic procedures. The student feedback for the workshops was excellent, with all students reporting that they had both enjoyed and learned from the experience.

Professor Rob Middleton commented “This project supports the BU-UHD partnership by training staff for the NHS within the University using the latest technological advances. Virtual reality medical simulation allows allied medical staff and doctors to be trained to perform surgery in a safe environment without risk of injury to a patient during the learning curve. Well done to Shay and the team at ORI in enabling this project to be delivered”

Shay Bahadori teaching a group of third year ODP students how to perform VR orthopaedic surgery