At the recent March 2022 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) conference a novel arthroscopic knee training simulator was introduced.
Novel, Inclusive Knee Simulation Model Debuted at AAOS
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Brand named ArthroS™, the training simulator featured different skin tones to reflect the diversity of both patients and trainee physicians.
According to Dr. Raimundo Sierra, founder and CEO of the manufacturer of ArthroS, Zurich, Switzerland-based VirtaMed. “VirtaMed is committed to encouraging diversity and inclusion in the education of medical skills, and we believe these values should also be reflected in the simulator hardware. This is just one step in the right direction toward more equitable healthcare education and delivery.”
“We believe it’s important for those training on complex medical procedures to learn in a realistic environment. We hope that this can serve as another step towards normalizing diversity and eliminating biases.”
The ArthroS simulator was developed in collaboration with Dr. Jacqueline Brady, Dr. Cassandra Lee, and Dr. Patrick Joyner from the Arthroscopy Association of North America Knee Taskforce. The taskforce was instrumental in “identifying high-priority new cases and features with the most potential impact for training the next generation of surgeons.”
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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