Teaching Surgery Without a Patient

Virtual-reality devices at Penn State and other medical centers let residents hone skills

In a laboratory at a Pennsylvania State University teaching hospital here, surgical residents are racing against the clock, clamping and suturing, grimacing when their tools tear soft tissue.

Today, at least, no lives are at stake. The "operations" they are performing take place in the safety of virtual reality, where the slip of a scalpel won't leave anyone hemorrhaging, although it might

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