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Center of Excellence for Surgical Education and Innovation

CESEI Research

The Research Division of CESEI is composed of talented researchers with outstanding ideas and projects.

The fundamental motivation is to develop advanced surgical technologies and procedures, assessing their efficacy and cost effectiveness, transfer them to the operating theatre and facilitate their commercial development.

Our research is multidisciplinary, and in addition to CESEI, includes the Departments of Surgery, and Medicine, Division of Educational Support and Development (Faculty of Medicine), Department of Mechanical Engineering (Faculty of Applied Science at UBC), Faculty of Computer Science (McGill University), School of Engineering Science (SFU), Centre for Minimal Access Surgery (CMAS) at McMaster University.

The industry partners committed to collaborate in these projects are MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA), Intuitive Surgical and Medical Education Technologies Inc. (METI).

Research Committee

The Research Committee's goal is to direct, coordinate and support the research endeavors in the Centre.

Research Programs:

Educational Research - The main goal of this research program is to evaluate the educational effectiveness of: training methods, instructional units and approaches, instructional technology, software products and simulation equipment.

Innovation, Research & Development -The main goal of this research program is the development of software and hardware products (instructional and practice-oriented), application of haptic technology to educational software and hardware, distance surgery and robotics in surgery.

Human Factors and Performance - The main goal of this research program is to explore the mental and physical capacities of the operator in specific operating conditions with the goal to optimize performance.

Efforts and Products

Some of the ongoing research projects include:

  1. Comparison of computer assisted instruction (CAI) vs. traditional textbook method in training for abdominal examination (Medical Education 2004, 38: (1080-1088)).
  2. Evaluating the effectiveness of computer-assisted learning module in the context of UBC Medical School Curriculum (paper presented at the ACMC Annual meeting in Halifax, April 2004)
  3. Model for evaluating the instructional effectiveness with different cohorts (paper presented at the 11th International OttawaConference on Medical Education, Barcelona, July 2004)
  4. The effect of structured training outside of the operating room on laparoscopic knowledge and skill acquisition (study in progress on the effectiveness of a curriculum for laparoscopic surgery trainingof residents)
  5. Effectiveness study of a multimedia Basic Surgical Techniques training module for clerks (proposed study using the model for evaluation with different cohorts)
  6. Quantitative measures of transfer of training and validation of laparoscopic surgical simulators (paper presented at the MMVR Conference, Newport Beach, California, 2003)
  7. Objective multi-modal surgical performance analysis (paper presented at the SAGES Annual meeting, Denver, March 2004)
  8. Cost-performance trade-offs in the design of force-feedback surgical simulators (experimental platform presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, New Orleans, 2004)
  9. Collaborative project with Centre for Minimal Access Surgery, McMaster University: participation in the Canadian Surgical Support Network, Canada Health Infoway
  10. Collaborative project with Interventional Cardiology Program, UBC on development of a Remote Controlled Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory.
  11. Collaborative project with University of Calgary Advancing Robotics and Surgical Simulations
  12. Collaborative project with McGill University on the Design for Multi-Modal Symbolic Displays
  13. Dual-task approach to assessment in surgical education (project to start in the Spring of 2005)

Directors

Dr. G. Warnock, MD, FRCSC, FACS
Dr. R. Finley, MD, FRCSC, FACS
Dr. K. Qayumi, MD, PhD, FRCSC
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute

Research Committee

Dr. George Pachev, Chairman
Dr. Ross Brown
Dr. Jaap Hamburger
Dr. Anthony Hodgson
Dr. Valentyna Koval
Dr. Karim Qayumi
Mr. Ferooz Sekandarpoor

Active Researchers

Dr. John Dill, PhD
Dr. Vincent Hayward, D ipl. Ing, MSc, PhD
Dr. Vadim Kyrylov, PhD
Dr. Sam Lichtenstein, BASc, PhD, MD, FRCSC
Dr. John Mayo, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Karon MacLean, PhD
Dr. Alex Nagy, CD, BSc, MD, FRCSC
Dr. Shahram Payandeh, PhD

Student Researchers

Mr. Iman Brouwer
Ms. Sayra M. Cristancho
Ms. Catherine Kinnaird
Mr. Humberto Lara-Guerra
Ms. Joanne Lim

Contact Information

Centre of Excellence for Surgical Education and Innovation
3602-910 W. 10th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V5Z 4E3
Phone: (604) 875-5143
Fax: (604) 875-5832
Email:

Industry Partners