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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- By age 80, half of all Americans will have cataracts, and many will need surgery to remove them. Until recently, the only way doctors could practice removing cataracts was by operating on actual cataract patients. Now, a new, high-tech training tool is giving doctors the practice they need to perform cataract surgeries that could save a patient's sight.
Today, Dimitri Ligosky works his crossword puzzles with ease, but a few months ago, he couldn't even see the writing on the page. Thanks to cataract surgery, Ligosky sees every word. "It's the pleasure you get from recognizing a letter, and from wondering what the hell it is," he says.
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A cataract is a formation that clouds the lens of a patient's eye. Now, doctors are using a new, high-tech technique to train doctors to remove them.
Doctors at Ohio State University are one of the first in the nation to use this virtual simulator, a device that lets surgeons-in-training practice procedures without fear of hurting anyone.
"I've trained residents in doing cataract surgery for about 20 years now, and one of our big challenges is giving them experience before they actually tough a living human eye," says Tom Mauger, M.D., an ophthalmologist at Ohio State University in Columbus. "This system allows us to track almost every movement that the resident does during the surgery."
Residents begin by selecting virtual surgical instruments. Each time the resident makes a move, the virtual eye reacts to what he or she is doing. Ophthalmology resident Matthew Ohr was one of the first to test the device out. "It gives you the experience of working in the eye, before you actually do work in the eye," he says.
Ohr says when it came time for him to operate on a real human eye, the simulation program helped him feel less anxious about the surgery.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Thomas F. Mauger, M.D.
Chairman and Director
The Havener Eye Institute
Department of Ophthalmology
The Ohio State University
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