The design and verification of a pediatric supracondylar humerus fracture reduction simulator

Surgical simulators for training have been increasing in popularity in recent years for several reasons, but simulators designed to train skills in fracture reduction have been lacking. Fracture reduction involves putting fractured bone fragments back to their original location using medical imaging before securing them in place. It is a challenging skill that requires a sound understanding of how the fragments respond to the surgeon’s actions. A common break that requires this skill is that of a child’s upper arm bone near the elbow. Due to this gap in simulator development, a simulator was designed and tested for this particular fracture.

This work includes a discussion of the fracture reduction process and the development of a simulator based on the procedure itself. The simulator was then verified by performing an experiment to determine if it can differentiate between experienced and novice surgeons based on several scoring criteria. The results of this comparative study found that the simulator can differentiate between the two groups and provide evidence to include it in the surgical training curriculum to accompany current methods of teaching.