From Deja vu to Deja vecu: Reliving Surgery in Post-Operative Debriefing

Learning and continuous improvement of skills, both surgical and non surgical are goals surgeons pursue all along their training and career. Postoperative debriefing is a key tool to improve performance continuously in one's career. This retrospective analysis of surgical procedures is usually performed through rewatching action through video, which provides surgeons with only an outside view of their actions, and display information such as patient physiological data in ways different than when perceived during live action. We argue that VR (Virtual Reality) through HMDs (Head Mounted Displays) can mitigate and even overcome these limitations through providing an immersive experience that enables surgeons not only to re-watch action (deja vu), but to re-live action (deja vecu). Moreover, it can bring new opportunities, such as adopting another person's perspective to better understand their points of view.