What is the project?

Robotic surgery begins with mastering the basics and, increasingly, that training happens in virtual reality. VR simulation offers a reproducible, tissue-free way to build core robotic skills, without the cost and ethical weight of animal-tissue models. But a training curriculum is only as strong as the evidence behind it: which exercises truly build the right skills, and what score actually means a trainee is ready?

That's the question Orsi Academy wants to answer, and where you come in. Working on the da Vinci SimNow 2 simulator, you'll help develop and validate a VR module for Orsi's Basic Surgical Skills (BSS) training pathway. The core challenge: figure out which SimNow 2 exercises best represent the skills Orsi teaches, and whether their scores can reliably differentiate an expert from a novice and support proficiency-based progression.

Over the year you'll move from theory to real data: reviewing the literature on VR robotic-skills training and validation, mapping exercises to concrete learning objectives, helping design the validation protocol, and then collecting and analysing performance data from experts and novices on the simulator. The goal is an evidence-based module Orsi can fold into its own training, plus clear benchmarks for when a skill is genuinely mastered.

And you won't do it alone. You'll work in a hybrid setup: on-site at Orsi for simulator sessions and data collection, remotely for review and analysis, guided by your mentors and by Orsi's robotic- surgery faculty and fellows. The ambition is impact on two fronts: a training module that becomes part of how surgeons learn at Europe's largest robotic-surgery centre, and a genuine scientific output.