The UCH MAS Centre

The UCH MAS Centre is a crucial part of the UK's most advance training facility for healthcare professionals, the UCH Education Centre.

Minimal access surgery (MAS) is frequently a keystone of best practice, offering diminished tissue trauma, post-operative pain and complications – and with all the benefits of accelerated recovery.

Gaining hands-on training in this art is tricky, due to the intricacy and delicacy of the method. However, The Learning Hospital now offers a practicable solution with its range of new high-definition, interactive MAS teaching tools.

Featuring laparoscopic and endoscopic simulation trainers, the MAS centre has been designed specifically to facilitate group learning and supervision in this advanced technique.

Our teaching tools comprise up-to-the-minute technologies, providing:

• Practical, hands-on ‘virtual reality’ experiences
  
• ‘Real feedback scenarios’ using reactive mannequins
  
• An innovative hybrid system that connects human beings with advanced digital MAS implements.

Cameras positioned above each MAS training station relay detailed images to a tutor’s master station. This enables experienced clinicians to teach and supervise groups of up to 10 trainees simultaneously.

Trainees may also follow live or pre-recorded MAS procedures in real-time, comparing their work directly with the expert techniques portrayed before them on screen.

Everything is recorded on DVD, for post-operative examination and discussion.

da Vinci

The da Vinci Surgical System is a robotic surgical system made by Intuitive Surgical and designed to facilitate complex surgery using a minimally invasive approach. The system is controlled by a surgeon from a console. It is commonly used for prostatectomies and increasingly for cardiac valve repair and gynaecologic surgical procedures.