Lifelike Surgical Simulations

In Peter Weinstock's surgery talk, he recognizes one of the essential issues that the medical practice faces when it comes to operating on people. Providing adequate training is inherently challenging if not impossible, since young doctors can't get a completely real training experience without operating on an actual human being. The medical industry does what it can to provide the best possible training despite this, but mistakes are bound to be made by learning surgeons.

However, modern technology has come up with a way to combat this seemingly inescapable dilemma, and it's through medical simulations. One such example Weinstock gives is of a rare congenital birth defect. He and his team have experienced the problem before, and indeed it occurs on occasion, but the general instantiation is so low that its difficult to train for it with actual cases. In order to make the rare common, as Weinstock puts it, he and his team at Boston Children's Hospital have been using the same techniques from Hollywood special effects to replicate the precise conditions of people with illnesses and rare conditions upon which surgeons can practice effectively.