What Happens When Surgeons Can Fail Safely First

"What makes the simulator so valuable is that you can make mistakes, learn from them, and improve without putting patients at risk."

Before Dr. Patrick Sapana-Kosa ever operated on a single live patient, he had already completed more than 80 MSICS procedures and logged over 25 hours of virtual surgical simulation. As a first-year resident at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) in Ghana, Dr. Sapana-Kosa had the rare opportunity to master his technique before it mattered most.

That’s really what our work with Orbis International comes down to. It's not about the technology itself; it's about what that technology makes possible for surgeons who are still learning.

Dr. Sapana-Kosa is one of 13 first-year residents at KBTH who have collectively logged over 230 hours of surgical simulation training this year alone, a level of repetition that simply isn’t achievable through traditional training, where finite tissue resources and patient cases place hard limits on practice.

What we have seen at KBTH is a genuine shift in medical education. The faculty have built a structured, mandatory curriculum where the simulator is a prerequisite: virtual training first, then wet labs, then live cases. Because residents arrive at the wet labs already fluent in the basic surgical sequence, instruction has moved from step-by-step teaching to high-level mentoring. 

The results go far beyond surgical confidence: errors in the wet lab have dropped, driving direct cost savings through reduced tissue waste and the optimized utilization of vital surgical supplies. It is this capacity for safe, consequence-free repetition that has made KBTH one of Orbis’s most prolific global partners using the VR simulator.

Across the continent in Rwanda, training participants at the Rwanda International Institute of Ophthalmology (RIIO) described the same transformation:

“My surgeries have actually improved because I am now performing steps the way they are supposed to be done,” noted one resident.

What connects these voices across nations is a profound shift from hesitation to muscle memory and from anxiety to confidence.

Today, the Orbis program connects 22 partner institutions, driving hands-on training across Africa, Asia, and South America. Across this global network, we've seen hundreds of early-stage surgeons actively using the platform to clock thousands of practice hours, with our partners now expanding the simulation program's impact even further through local student workshops and targeted community initiatives.

We’re proud of these numbers, but what keeps us going is the impact beyond the data: surgeons who get to make mistakes when it is safe to do so, in a controlled environment, so that they're prepared for the moments in the operating room when there's no room for error.

Read more about our partnership with Orbis here.

Hannah Saimbi, Fundamental XR