Project REVEAL
The technique required to perform minimally invasive surgery is critically important to patient outcomes and surgeon skill levels. Acquiring surgical skill in such an environment is challenging. Even after mastery, ongoing practice is impacted by the high physical ergonomic strains as well as the psychological stress associated with performing tasks through long instruments and working in a field viewed on a 2D monitor with lens and lighting distortion.
REVEAL
Project REVEAL (Reconstruction, Enhancement, Visualization and Ergonomic Assessment for Laparoscopy), is providing advanced technology and physical training in procedures for minimally invasive surgery to reduce patient surgical risks, infection, recovery time, and cost as well as repetitive stress injuries among physicians performing the surgery.
Led by W. Brent Seales of the UK College of Engineering's Department of Computer Science, Project REVEAL uses large-screen projection to provide laparoscopic surgeons with a greater view of minimally invasive surgeries, thus reducing the risks of these procedures. This project partners UK with the University of Maryland Medical Center.
The project will be complemented by an initiative matching undergraduates studying media and communications at institutions in central Kentucky with UK researchers. Students will be assisted and supervised by a media specialist. They will work with high-level research projects and produce media with significant potential for telling the story of research’s importance and how it affects the people of Kentucky.
Actions and Outcomes to Date
Working with the University of Maryland REVEAL team, the following has been achieved. The REVEAL display system and tool suite has been deployed in the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Simulation Center, the tool suite has been improved, stereo video display technology upgrades have been made, full stereo probe calibration and analysis have been provided, performance modeling and analysis have been conducted, and enhanced experimental tools have been created for cognitive ergonomic experiments.
The display system performance has been completely quantified to limit latency to an average of 100 milliseconds, to produce full-frame resolution at 30 frames per second, and to understand the trade-offs and impacts of various parameter settings. In partnership with Dr. C. Melody Carswell, the team has received U.S. Army Institutional Review Board approval for human study on the cognitive issues regarding the new tools and algorithms. Preliminary experiments indicate that self-timing is difficult during surgery and is strongly affected by secondary tasks.
The current “cognitive ergonomic” study represents the only one of its kind in the surgical realm for new technologies. The results are expected to be very highly regarded by researchers looking for a factual basis for best structuring display systems for surgery in a way that minimizes distractions and enhances ability to handle both primary and secondary tasks. The team is moving toward a generic framework to support training, assessment, and product development in a unified surgical setting. This framework will have scientific impact for the REVEAL team and for others wishing to use it for continued research. It will also form the basis of a group of products with commercial potential.
The Media for Research initiative is building an undergraduate internship program to match undergraduates studying media and communications with UK researchers. Students are accepted to the program for a full semester and learn to produce media that benefits the research and makes it accessible to a wider audience. The program is supervised by Steve Bailey, the Media Specialist for REVEAL, and is part of the Media group within the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments (CVVE). Students selected, all from Central Kentucky, have worked on a number of projects. An online page explaining the program and a video highlighting its accomplishments and students involved in the program are available at Center for Visualization & Virtual Environments web site.
The project extension has met its three primary goals: giving undergraduates who study media the opportunity to tell the story of research projects under the supervision of a media specialist with extensive production experience; assisting in the outreach activities of UK research projects by giving those projects the opportunity to use produced media to appeal to a broader audience; and precipitating development of a culture of dissemination and accessibility within the UK research community in a way that engages students and tells a compelling story.
The internship program is beginning to mature. Everything is in place to ensure that the program will grow and cover more research. The program is producing segments that raise the standard of quality at the Research Channel.