In this episode, Dr. Aaron Fritts interviews Dr. Danny Goel, orthopedic surgeon and CEO / co-founder of PrecisionOS, a virtual reality (VR) education company aimed at creating valuable opportunities for orthopedic surgery trainees to build their skillsets.

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SHOW NOTES

Dr. Goel shares his story, from his residency, to his MBA years, and the eventual idea for his company. PrecisionOS emerged as an idea when he was searching for training opportunities in shoulder reconstruction surgery. As a proceduralist, he realized that most new skills were acquired by traveling to courses and workshops hosted by professional societies and medical device companies. He wanted to find a way to make training more accessible by integrating virtual reality. Virtual reality is popular in the orthopedics space since there is a direct application for it. For example, understanding which implant to use in each clinical problem can be training via virtual reality. Dr. Goel emphasizes that the use of VR for mindless repetition will be fruitless. It is rather the deliberate, systematic, and data-driven approach to practice that allows for skill attainment and refinement.

The doctors also speak about the evolution of VR hardware and how the headset must evolve to become sleeker and more user friendly. The headset cost has decreased, making it more scalable for distribution around the world. Additionally, tactile sensation has been integrated through manual controllers. These haptics are improving in the same way that visual optics did in the last iteration. Dr. Goel highlights data showing that haptics are extremely important for new trainees, while visual cues are more important to experienced surgeons.

Finally, Dr. Goel describes how he met his co-founders, the different areas of expertise that they contribute to the company, and the team dynamic that allows him to practice medicine full time while also serving as CEO. This balance allows him to maintain perspective on clinical challenges and fit his product accordingly.

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RESOURCES

PrecisionOS:

https://www.precisionostech.com/

The Future of Surgery Training and Education:

https://www.precisionostech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/The-Future-of-Surgery-Training-and-Education-Whitepaper.pdf

Immersive Virtual Reality for Surgical Training: A Systematic Review:

https://www.journalofsurgicalresearch.com/article/S0022-4804(21)00416-9/fulltext

The Metaverse by Matthew Ball:

https://www.matthewball.vc/metaversebook

Prediction Machines by Ajay Agarwal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb:

https://www.predictionmachines.ai/