Touch Surgery App, great interactive surgical simulator

Understanding a surgical procedure before executing it in practice is important for successful surgical outcome. Big part of that understanding is ability to visualize the surgery process. That's why surgical simulation tools are becoming more and more important in the training of orthopedic surgeons, especially on smart devices that made learning process more convenient and easier.

One of the best tools available is Touch Surgery app by Kinosis, an interactive mobile surgical simulator that guides medical students step-by-step through every part of a surgery, allowing them to experience surgical environments in incredible 3D detail, and to track their results and learning progress.

The app offers modules from Duke University, Stanford University, and the Imperial College London, which makes it an important resource for any surgical trainee looking to expand their surgical knowledge of common procedures.
The app requires you to create a free account in order to join thousands of surgeons worldwide using Touch Surgery app to learn and rehearse surgical process.

Once you enter your email address and password, and accept the app's ToS, you'll be asked to enter a couple more details about yourself, such as your name, profession (from attending surgeon or physician, to student or non-medic) and your specialty (from Anaesthetics to Vascular), and your your sub-specialty depending on your specialty. For this review, we've chosen General specialty and Upper gastrointestinal sub-specialty. Choosing specialty and sub-specialty apparently 'shapes' the app for you, giving you particular content based on your specialty.

After entering your details, you'll be prompted to verify your profession or choose to be reminded later. Verifying your profession gives you an unlimited access to all app's features and it's very handy if you plan to use this app as your daily tool.
The app's main screen is divided between two tabs: My Stream and Bookmarks, which is populated once you start adding procedures you'd find more useful.

My Stream gives you an option to search for particular procedure via Search option at the top, or viewing the library. Also, based on the specialty we chose, there was Sleeve Gastrectomy procedure listed in form of slides. Each slide was one phase of the procedure (4 in total).

Taping on library gives you a list of all procedures available in the app, sorted by category or title (alphabetically), or by most recent or most popular procedures. You don't have an option to choose only those procedures related to the sub-specialty you've chosen, yet you get all procedures with an option go through the list and choose the procedure manually. Basically, we found no use of entering the specialty and sub-specialty, when customization obviously doesn't work, i.e. everyone will get same content. You can only choose the list view.

Another thing to note is that you have to download each procedure, which takes additional space on your device/phone, so keep in mind not to overload you phone with content, or at least download only content you'll use frequently. Some procedures were downloaded, but we weren't sure if they were preloaded, or app installed them without our permission. Another drawback was app's performance. It was slow in parts, becoming almost unresponsive, although the app was tested on a phone with solid processor and sufficient amount of memory.

Once downloaded, the procedure gives you more information about the procedure. Each procedure module developed by the help of various sponsors, so procedures are also a place for advertising sponsors and their products. However, main goal of the app is learning, so two main options Learn and Test are prominently listed under Simulation tab. They allow users to learn about the procedure, and test their knowledge afterwards. You can review your scores by tapping on Your Performance tab.

Each procedure has several phases, depending on the complexity of the procedure. For example, the wedge resection procedure we've chosen for this review has 4 phases, with each step explained in detail, thanks to impressive 3D graphics and animation, which recreates the operating room environment accurately, and also display human anatomy with impressive detail.

Learn part allows the user to progress through each procedure by simply moving a green circle to a pink circle with the tough of their fingers, to simulate a surgical step.

Test mode is broadened by asking the questions regarding the procedure. The user has to answer those questions or to perform the simulated step from the Learn part. After finishing simulation, the user is provided with a score report that helps them assess their learning process.

The step-by-step method given in Touch Surgery app is really user-friendly and an easy way of showing particular method of performing the operation. However, performing surgical procedures often requires many other techniques and methods, and students and trainees should keep that in mind. Still, this app provides useful foundation for understanding the key concepts and steps of certain procedures.

Overall, Touch Surgery app is probably the best resource for learning various surgical procedures and techniques by visualizing validated methods for performing those procedures.

Benefit: Surgeons, healthcare providers and medical students who are looking to practice surgery or to learn medical surgery step-by-step would benefit from this app.