Do You See What I See? 

USA Headquarters

November 15, 2020

Hands of ReSurge Consulting Medical Officer Dr. Jim Chang and Donald Laub fellow Anna Luan using the smart glasses to connect from two separate locations.

ReSurge is proud to announce our collaboration with Ohana One International Surgical Aid , a global surgical training nonprofit organization whose mission is to cultivate high-quality surgical and anesthesia programs in developing areas around the world today. As part of their Surgical Sight program, ReSurge is among 6 non-profits that will be receiving Vuzix Smart Glasses, a technology that connects surgeons in low-income countries with experts from around the world.  

ReSurge is participating in this larger program and study, in which 20 glasses are going to 16 countries across 5 disciplines: general surgery, colorectal, neurology, urology, orthopedic, and of course, reconstructive surgery. ReSurge has received 5 pairs of glasses which will in turn be given to our surgical partners in India, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, and Uganda.  The glasses use what’s known as “merged reality” so that the mentee can wear the glasses, and the mentor, sitting thousands of miles away can actually insert their hand into the mentee’s field of vision, as pictured below. In this way, ReSurge surgical mentors will see exactly what surgeons in the operating rooms are seeing, giving them the opportunity to guide and teach in real-time during surgical procedures.
 
Ohana One is providing ReSurge with the VUZIX smart glasses and the coordinating projection software that brings the surgeons together (Click here to  access a webinar about the technology).  

The Surgical Sight program is the brainchild of Dr. David Kulber, a ReSurge volunteer who started Ohana One. Dr. Kulber currently does this mentoring via Smart Glasses with our ReSurge surgical outreach partner Pedro Santos in Mozambique.

“The success of the first mentor/mentee program culminated with Dr. Santos passing his COSECSA boards for the first time while ranking second in all of Africa, and having other doctors wanting to volunteer,” states Kulber. “This experience created the nucleus to roll out a broader and more robust program so that physicians all over the world who work in limited resource countries can have access to mentor/mentee relationships, which go beyond education and creates deep personal bonds on a global scale.”

Other partners that will be receiving the Smart Glasses include:

Ecuador — Dr. Lorena Escudero Castor (also a PWRS surgeon), partnered with mentor Dr. Vaughn
India — Dr. Kush Aeron, partnered with mentor Dr. Partington
Nepal — Dr. Shilu Shrestha (also a PWRS surgeon), partnered with mentor Dr. Hentz at Stanford

Uganda — Dr. Rose Aleyno, partnered with mentor Dr. Cooney at Johns Hopkins
Zimbabwe — Dr. Kevin Nduku, partnered with mentor Dr. Gordon Lee at Stanford

We will be shipping the glasses out to their respective countries and mentees in the coming weeks and will keep you updated as the program progresses. During this pilot stage, ReSurge hopes to provide valuable feedback in order to grow the program and ultimately build surgical knowledge and capacity around the world, a core mission for both organizations. We are excited about the potential impact of the program, as Dr. Pedro Santos has said that through Dr. Kulber’s mentorship, he has “been able to treat over 20 cases of complex reconstructions. However, the principles that have been passed on to me have allowed me to treat far more patients without Dr. Kulber’s guidance on the other side of the line. This is an easily reproducible model that can have a significant impact on surgeons and patients’ lives and should be used to improve patient care worldwide.”

ReSurge is very grateful to Ohana One for sharing this extraordinary technology with us so that we can bring our surgical community closer together.