Tele-surgery simulation to perform surgical training of abdominal da Vinci surgery

Laparoscopic surgery including robotic surgery allows the surgeon to be able to conduct minimally invasive surgery. Robotic surgery has been utilized in performing cholecystectomy, laparoscopic prostatectomy and so on. This surgery can provide many benefits for the patient. However, a surgeon is required to master difficult skills for this surgery to compensate for the narrow field of view, limitation of work space, and the lack of depth sensation. To counteract these drawbacks, the purpose of this study is to develop a surgery simulation that provides a method of training and mastering surgical procedures with the da Vinci system. In addition, our system aims to construct a training simulation center that will enable a surgeon to simulate surgery from or in remote places, to collaborate remotely, and to provide guidance from expert surgeons. In this paper, we would like to show the surgery simulation for da Vinci surgery, in particular a cholecystectomy. The integral parts of this system are a soft tissue model which is created by the sphere-filled method enabling real-time deformations based on a patient's data, the operation console for the simulation and the Internet connection. By using this system, a surgeon can perform surgical maneuvers such as pushing, grasping, and detachment in real-time manipulation and we can perform the tele-surgery simulation for training between two Japanese cities.