Remote mentoring in laparotomic and laparoscopic cancer surgery during Covid-19 pandemic: an experimental setup based on mixed reality

Figures & data

Figure 1. The adopted architecture for remote mentoring includes MR smartglasses, a digital imaging player, a DICOM database containing the medical images and a mixed reality toolkit

Figure 2. The surgeon while resizing a virtual image (left); the virtual images placed on the real scene (center); the surgeon while dragging a digital photo (right)

Figure 3. The surgeon performs a ‘drag and drop’ gesture during a gastrectomy to rotate and scale a virtual image

Table 1. Feedback from the five medical doctors under training: right adrenal carcinoma. For each reported item, the total score represents the average over the five trainees

Evaluations on smartglasses used for telementoring activities
Items	Total score
Q1: How would you rate the real time-interaction during the surgery?	8
Q2: Did the smartglasses help you to focus on the activities?	9
Q3: Did the smartglasses enhance your degree of attention?	9
Q4: How would you rate the instant feedback you received?	8
Q5: How helpful was the platform with reference to the acquired skills?	8
Q6: How would you rate your overall experience?	8

Table 2. Feedback from the five medical doctors under training: gastrectomy

Evaluations on smartglasses used for telementoring activities
Items	Total score
Q1: How would you rate the real time-interaction during the surgery?	7
Q2: Did the smartglasses help you to focus on the activities?	9
Q3: Did the smartglasses enhance your degree of attention?	9
Q4: How would you rate the instant feedback you received?	9
Q5: How helpful was the platform with reference to the acquired skills?	9
Q6: How would you rate your overall experience?	9

Table 3. Survey from the telementoring course attendees regarding all the 12 surgeries (scale from 1 to 10, low to high)

Final feedback for telementoring activities
Items	Total score
Q1: How useful were the smartglasses for the overall training?	8
Q2: How would you rate the quality of the training course?	7
Q3: How useful was the virtual content delivered via the platform?	7
Q4: How would you rate the shared multimedia content?	8
Q5: How would you rate the usefulness of this course to your work?	8
Q6: How would you rate the safety (during the training) with reference to Covid-19?	7