Surgery Educational Center

A major new commitment of the IRPS, the Surgery Education Center, basedin a newly renovated 3000 square foot space at Bellevue Hospital, has beendesigned from the ground up to be at the forefront in virtual surgery educationand development.

Founded on the converging trends of increasing public interest in patientsafety and the ever increasing power of computers, virtual surgery had anearly start at NYU with the development of the internationally distributedCleft Lip and Palate animations developed by Dr. Court Cutting’s laboratory.

The experiences gained from this pioneering groundwork have been incorporatedinto the Education Center which focuses on the concurrent development ofsurgical animations, surgical simulations, cognitive/scenario simulations,and a virtual surgery atlas. Additionally, validated outcomes measures aredesigned into these projects to allow for continual reappraisal of theireffectiveness, refinement of the coding algorithms, and publishable researchactivity. All disciplines within plastic surgery are included.

Finally, it is our vision that the center will not only figure centrallyin the education of future generation of plastic surgeons but also play adefining role in the evolution of the nascent field of computer based medicalillustration, animation, and simulation.