The virtual university applied to telesurgery: from tele-education to tele-manipulation

The advent of new computer technologies appears as a revolution of surgical teaching, as well as the planification and realisation of surgical procedu res. The introduction of a camera into the body of a patient, allowing the visual display of the operative procedure through the use of a miniaturised camera constitutes the greatest alteration that the surgical world has exp erienced at the end of this century : mini-invasive surgery is born. This r evolution was announces further changes : the development of telecommunicat ion devices applied to medicine (teleeducation, teletraining, telementoring , teleproctoring and teleaccreditation) constitutes the basis of cybersurge ry or virtual reality allowing the merging of the concepts of telepresence and telemanipulation. These new concepts were developed at the European Ins titute of TeleSurgery of Strasbourg The TESUS project developed the use of surgical images and data transmission through the realisation of internatio nal multi-site videoconferences between surgeons. The WEBS project created the first Virtual University concept placing surgical techniques at the sur geon's disposal through Internet. The HESSOS project uses virtual reality a s a surgical simulation system. The MASTER project allows to develop the co ncept of distant telemanipulation. It is now possible to face surgical teac hing outside of the restricted University frame and to conceive teaching on a world level, offering to the practitioner unimaginable possibilities of formation, training and planning of surgical procedures.