Surgical Animations

What I've been pondering these few weeks is how realistic a surgical animation can be. To reconstruct the entire ALND procedure might require a lot of effort in rendering realistic textures, as well as non-mechanical movements of muscle and fat.

Right now what I could gather from different sources are animations that are more systematic; they are realistically rendered, but somehow I feel that they're not as realistic as what I'm aiming for.

Perhaps I should venture out to other animation such as gaming...(zombies with dangling flesh anyone?)

Spine Surgery Animation - Neurologic & Orthopedic Institute from Neurologic & Orthopedic Hospital on Vimeo.

Biceps Tenodesis Animation from NSW Endoscopy on Vimeo.

Change of focus

From reviewing my blog, I realize that I'm making an impression that my MRP is focusing on the Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy (SLNB) procedure. In reality, the focus of my MRP has changed slightly after our 1st Committee meeting.

The focus would not be on the SLNB procedure, but the Axillary Lymph Node Dissection (ALND) procedure. There is currently insufficient viewing opportunities of this procedure for surgical residents, and therefore we propose to create a 3D computer animation of the procedure, to provide surgical residents with a learning tool.

For more details, please download my MRP proposal.

Formal Presentation Slides