The VITAL Trial was conducted in November 2019, where 30 surgical trainees from Connaught Hospital and the CapaCare Surgical Training Programme took part in a lower-limb amputation training course. Here the research group explored the feasibility and acceptability of a virtual reality (VR) training platform for use on trainee’s own mobile phones. The results were promising and demonstrate the feasibility of the technology even in challenging contexts. Click here to hear the perspectives of the first users.
The next steps are to develop new training modules covering different operations and to scale up the platform so we can do larger studies and hopefully benefit more trainees globally.
The FIXT Trial is ongoing with continuation of patients receiving the Ilizarov circular frames. Some of the first frame patients have had their fixator removed and are continuing to make a good recovery. Formal analysis and results cannot be presented at this time. We would like to thank our colleagues at Connaught Hospital for their continued efforts on this study, and we hope they stay safe in this challenging time.