The imperative for medical simulation

The practice of medicine lias, for millennia, relied upon a master-apprentice system of learning, with patients providing the necessary anatomy from which we learn how to perform surgery and other procedures. The advent of high-power computing and real-time graphics representations allows medicine to advance beyond this traditional method of teaching and to begin to educate physicians without putting patients at risk. With innovative Implies interface devices, computer-based training will enable novice physicians to practice new or unfamiliar procedures and experienced physicians to learn procedures that have been developed since their training was completed. Specialty boards and credentialing organizations will, for the first time, have metrics upon which to base the decisions regarding who is qualified to practice medicine, and both sides of the learning curve, the acquisition of skills and their deterioration, will be discovered. This paper presents the concepts, challenges, and visions of the authors, both of whom have been actively developing simulation for the specialty of interventional radiology. It includes our expectations for the future of simulation in other procedural specialties.