Visioning Simulation Conference

The impetus for the Visioning Simulation Conference began with an intensive study on the future of thoracic surgery education conducted by the Education Committee of TSFRE. The Education Committee envisioned how thoracic surgery education is likely to evolve over the next 10 to 15 years and beyond, and developed a comprehensive plan for ensuring that the specialty has in place the educational infrastructure and resources needed to best serve patients as the art and practice of the specialty advance over time.

The rapidly changing landscape of cardiothoracic surgery requires the development of new skills in every area of thoracic surgery such as minimally invasive cardiothoracic procedures like percutaneous valve and catheter technology, as well as endovascular grafting. The use of simulation in training and certification will allow for transdisciplinary training in all areas of thoracic surgery and new simulation technology will enhance the general thoracic surgeons’ efforts to retool or retrain themselves in other cardiothoracic subspecialties. Over time, simulation will become a required method for demonstrating proficiency, achieving and maintaining certification, and the adoption of new technologies after certification.

Simulation will become a core element of cardiothoracic surgery resident education, and a primary methodology for post-graduate education, helping to bridge the rapidly widening gap between what practitioners learn in their initial training and new practice methods that must be mastered after practitioners complete their training and enter practice.

The Visioning Simulation Conference (VSC) convened in Cambridge, MA on April 19 – 20, 2007 and was attended by appointed representatives from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, American Association for Thoracic Surgery, American Board of Thoracic Surgery, Thoracic Surgery Directors Association, European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgeons, American College of Surgeons, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and our industry partners Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences and St. Jude Medical. In addition several attendees with extensive simulation experience and development were active participants.

The conference began with a simulated OR demonstration by live video feed. Over the two-day conference speakers presented simulation use in anesthesia, the airline industry, the ACS and computer simulation of congenital heart lesions. These helped to demonstrate what is available today and to stimulate thought among the participants.

The primary working function of the conference centered on a series of roundtable discussions planned to define how simulation could be applied to thoracic surgery education. A manuscript documenting outcomes of the conference is being prepared with the goal of providing a comprehensive strategic plan that will outline the groundwork necessary to establish simulation techniques in the training and certification of thoracic surgeons.