Skills evaluation, tailored feedback: McGill AI project could change the way brain surgeons are trained

Alexander Winkler-Schwartz, a neurosurgery resident and PhD candidate, poses in the lab with a NeuroVR neurosurgical simulator at McGill University, on July 31, 2019. Alexander Winkler-Schwartz focuses on the computer-generated brain on the screen while, below, his hands gently remove the virtual brain tumour inside the mannequin's head. An artificial intelligence algorithm tracks the neurosurgery resident's every movement – ready to classify his performance as part of a research project at McGill University, where intelligent machines are learning to rank people based on how deftly they take away the tumour. It's part of a wider effort to harness the power of technology to improve medicine. Artificial intelligence is already helping monitor the vital signs of babies in intensive-care, and robots are a fixture in operating rooms. The algorithm in Montreal is correct in determining whether the virtual surgeon is an expert, a beginner, or somewhere in between 90 per cent of the time, based on a study of 250 simulated operations by 50 different people, according to a study published in the open-source Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday that Dr. Winkler-Schwartz was a lead author on.