Bonedoc is a serious game. Developed for the purpose of improving surgery. Though hopefully it is accesible to those who are considering a career in Orthopaedics in the future.
It is an implementation of 'See One, Do One, Teach One' in that you can watch the clips on this site to decide if you want to buy the app, Then I trust you will perform the surgery at least once before you teach a friend how to virtually operate.
This is a view which shows what the typical medical student or junior doctor sees. Hardly helpful in learning the key concepts of the surgery. but in the app you get to operate.
The impetus for the game came from having the experience of operating on patients, and being aware that interpreting x-ray images and consequently how to adjust the trajectory of my drill,or guidewire was not necessarily the best way to learn the surgical craft.
We trust that the experience will be rich enough, that perhaps in the future, you will need to prove your virtual skills on the app, before you operate on my relative.
Screw and plate fixation of hip fractures is one of the first surgical procedures which trainees will perform. It is also one of the first times they need to use X-rays which provide a 2-dimensional picture of the 3 dimensional location and angle of the wires,screws and plates used to fix the fracture.
The app allows you to perform all the relevant tasks to pinning a hip fracture, from fracture reduction (aligning the parts of the bone), making an incision (cutting the skin), placing the guidewire, over which a screw is placed.
This image shows a stage in the procedure where you can see the fracture, as well as the guidewire,which is being held in place by the guide-plate.
The guideplate allows you to be sure your final plate will sit flush with the bone.
The guide-plate you would use in the real world guides your placement of the wire and screws, and then finally you have to fill the lag screws. At the conclusion of the operation you get to do an instant virtual dissection to see exactly where you have placed the screw and plate. Something impossible in the real world.
Finally you get comprehensive results. Which will improve your surgery, but initally you will probably only look at the bottom line.
Feedback in the real world can be hard to get. X-rays can make your screw appear to be close to acceptable, but in reality they may lie close to the joint.
Bonedoc gives you feedback which has real world meaning, such as the location of the screw tip, in relation to the 'ideal' sweetspot. But which would not be achievable unless you took a CT Scan.
There is nothing like competition to improve performance. The app hooks into the Game Center, so you can challenge your colleagues and friends, and see whom is the best local or global Bonedoc. It is also easy to share your triumphs via Facebook or Twitter.
We hope you have fun. And for those who are actually doing the real surgery, we hope that by playing the app, your real world performance, and subsequently the care of your patients will improve.
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