Porto Alegre, 6 June 2018
Students and residents at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre have a new technology for training in otorhinolaryngology surgery. The VOXEL-MAN ENT surgery simulator was installed this week at the Laboratory of Medical Research in Neuroanatomy and Otorhinolaryngology of the Department of Morphological Sciences. It is the so far southernmost installation of this type of simulator, as well as the first in Brazil.
For use in undergraduate and postgraduate activities at UFRGS, VOXEL-MAN ENT allows for a complete understanding of the anatomy and surgical approaches in a safe environment. As professor Geraldo Pereira Jotz of the Department of Morphological Sciences explains, the simulator is a training tool for surgery of temporal bone and paranasal sinuses, two particularly delicate structures of the human body. It contains various structures at risk such as vessels and nerves. It is even possible to feel the consistency of the material as if it were a real intervention. The simulator also monitors the training progress, recording the user’s interactions with the machine and presenting an analysis of the performance.
In the morning, a presentation of VOXEL-MAN ENT was held in presence of the Chief of Staff João Roberto Braga de Mello, the director and deputy director of the Institute of Basic Health Sciences (ICBS), Ilma Simoni Brum da Sila and Marcelo Lazzaron Lamers, teachers of ICBS and representatives of VOXEL-MAN and Biomedica. Professors Jotz and Joel Lavinsky gave a demonstration of the main functionalities.
The first delivery of the simulator in Brazil is also the first with a Portuguese user interface. The original article is available on the UFRGS website.