Two surgeons-scientists in Toronto, Drs. Teodor Grantcharov and Vanessa Palter, are working on a practical digital exercise for new surgeons that appears to be a sure-fire way of preventing them from making mistakes. The idea is to have them do their operations in advance in a computer room. The two say that surgical residents ought to achieve an established level of proficiency in a virtual operating room before they start plying their scalpel in a real OR. Statistics show that in the first 50 cases, the risk of major complications is significantly higher than after the next 30 cases. Story
