Thank you to all who attended the annual Surgeons and Engineers: A Dialogue on Surgical Simulation meeting held on March 22 -23, 2025. This 1.5-day in-person meeting had notable success. The meeting attracted 130 attendees from the U.S. and 10 other countries. Fifteen highly scored abstracts were selected and presented as oral presentations, and 43 abstracts were presented as poster presentations.
The keynote address, “Forging Partnerships, Transforming Care: Engineers and Surgeons in the Digital Health Revolution,” was delivered by Bijan Najafi, PhD, MSc, Professor of Surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Najafi’s presentation explored how the partnership between engineers and surgeons serves as a catalyst for redefining surgical training and advancing patient care.
The Special Panel on Surgeons and Engineers: How to Build Better Surgical Simulators - Part 3 included a surgeon educator, an academic engineer, and an expert from the surgical simulator industry. The panel built upon the discussion from the 2023 and 2024 Surgeons and Engineers to refine the dialogue on how to improve surgical simulators. The panelists included Dmitry Nepomnayshy, MD, MSc, FACS, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Doga Demirel, PhD, MSc, University of Oklahoma, and Tansel Halic, PhD, Intuitive Surgical.
The debate, “Is 3D Printing Still Valuable in Surgical Education?” was moderated by Paul Jeziorczak, MD, MPH, FACS, FAAP, Director of Surgical Simulation and Associate Program Director General Surgery Residency at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. The debate examined the successful application of 3D printing in surgical education and identified potential barriers to its widespread adoption. The “Pro” side of the debate was presented by DJ Traina, Interim Director of Technology at the University of Washington Medical Center Clinical Additive Manufacturing Program. The “Con” side of the debate was presented by Charles J. Aprahamian, MD, Surgeon-in-Chief at the Children’s Hospital of Illinois.
The Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) Session explored the application of the CTA process as a framework for engineers and surgeons to collaborate in defining the essential elements and metrics of surgical simulators. The session speakers were Robert Sweet, MD, FACS, MAMSE, Professor of Urology, Chief Division of Healthcare Simulation Science, Executive Director of WISH and CREST at the University of Washington; David Hananel, BSEE, BACS, Director, Center for Research in Education and Simulation Technologies at the University of Washington; and Victoria Roach, PhD, Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Healthcare Simulation Science at the University of Washington.
The 2nd Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Simulator/Model Competition received 24 entries. The competition highlighted the innovative spirit of the surgical simulation community and garnered much interest from attendees. The first-place awardee was Layla Triplett, M.Ed, from Duke University SEAL for the “Inguinal Hernia Simulator.” The People’s Choice award, as voted on by meeting attendees, was awarded to Jeremiah Egolf, BSBME, from the Boston Children’s Hospital for the “Open Spina Bifida Fetoscopic Repair Simulator.”
