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t m c » p u l s e | m a r c h 2 0 1 6 28 A New Home for Surgical Education The Houston Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation & Education offers practicing physicians a platform to hone their technique and safely adopt new technologies medicine, but now with recent medical advances there's been a transformative introduction of emerging technol- ogies, from laparoscopic surgery to computer-assisted procedures that use robotics. All of a sudden, there are surgeons out there in busy practices who are supposed to safely incorporate new technologies where they don't even have any fundamental training." According to Bass, within a decade of completing training, a surgeon who has not actively worked to remain current will no longer be practicing the standard of care. That realization, compounded by the increasing com- plexity of operative environments and the introduction of image guidance and robotics, spurred Bass to action. In 2006, after arriving at Houston Methodist Hospital to develop a nationally recognized department of surgery, she proposed the creation of an institute that would serve as a hub for surgeons around the world to Surgical Innovation and Technology at MITIE, where he also serves as medical director. "Educationally, its focus is one of a kind: it's a purpose-built facility for practicing health care professionals that enables them to stay on the top of their game. Combining that vision with an institution like Houston Methodist— one on a mission to build the country's next greatest academic medical cen- ter—was the perfect marriage to create a place that couldn't exist anywhere else. To this day, I still don't think there's anything else like it." For procedurally-based clinicians (surgeons, nurses and physician assistants), MITIE is positioned as an "educational home," a place where practitioners can learn innovative tech- niques and use new technologies. While medical training in the U.S. immerses future clinicians in a rich learning environment, once they're practicing, these same physicians are left to their own devices. Forced to reckon with an ad hoc system of conferences—which frequently don't offer any hands-on training—surgeons are at increasing risk of lagging behind the unprecedented, rapidly escalating pace of advancements in surgical technology. "There's a massive cohort of our surgical public that we haven't built an appropriate educational infrastructure for," said Barbara L. Bass, M.D., execu- tive director of MITIE, where she is also the John F. Jr. and Carolyn Bookout Presidential Distinguished Chair. "We have wonderful medical schools that really help instill knowledge in aspiring physicians. Then we have fabulous residency training programs, where our residents live for five to nine years in a tightly supervised, highly structured educational environment. "After that, we act like you're done and send you out into practice," she said. "That's fine, and maybe that worked for the first 40 years of modern S tepping inside the pristine edu- cation and research space at the Houston Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation & Education (MITIE) is akin to walking on the set of a science fiction film. Beneath the glow of operating lamps, practicing surgeons at 15 skills stations—essen- tially, mini operating rooms—navigate endoscopic tubes through liver models, reflecting the organs' hollows and rivets on screen. Across the hall, full-body patient mannequins in distress struggle to breathe as they simulate emergency situations. Further down, trainees plug into daVinci surgical systems, maneu- vering joysticks while robotically controlled arms spring to life several feet away. For practicing health care professionals looking to stay abreast of new technologies and techniques, the future is now. "MITIE is really a unique institu- tion," said Brian Dunkin, M.D., the John F. Jr. and Carolyn Bookout Chair in B y A l e x O r l a n d o