Surgical Simulators—What Can We Learn from Pilots?

Having explored Sports PsychologySports Psychology, this chapter moves into the physical domain of actual practice. Athletes train to perform, surgeons perform to train. This has been changing over the years with technological advances facilitating the development of virtual reality simulatorsSimulators, an exciting move away from the rather ‘dry’ wet labs. This has been driven recently by a global pandemic bringing much of ‘physical medicine’ to a standstill. I will review the evidence for simulatorsSimulators in surgical trainingSurgical training as perhaps the most obvious tool for improving ‘how’ surgerySurgery is done within our ‘Part I’ perspective. Can surgeons now train to perform at last? However, I have several questions to answer. Chapter 1 revealed the critical effects of physiological arousal and cognitive anxiety on performance but can these be replicated in a simulator? Is their usefulness limited to the very early stages of surgical trainingSurgical training or are they useful even for experienced surgeons? The airline industry uses simulatorsSimulators throughout a pilot’s career, surgeons use them only at the beginning. What is a learning curve in surgerySurgery and how might simulatorsSimulators influence it? Finally, might simulatorsSimulators actually interfere with the surgeon developing the complex schemas required to solve complex surgical problems?