Practicing for Gameday: Baseball, Orthopedics and a Home Depot Surgical Simulator: Dr. Gregory Lopez

PeerSpectrum | Journeys in Medicine

Today we have a fun episode for you. Dr. Gregory Lopez is orthopedic spine surgeon in Chicago with Midwest Orthopedics at Rush. He's a former collegiate and minor league baseball player who's experienced his fair share of injuries. It's those experiences that inspired his path toward medicine. He's also an innovator and that's where are story gets fun. As a baseball player, Greg recognized the critical importance of regular practice. During residency, Greg uncovered a real need for more hands on surgical practice. Unfortunately, time was limited and cadavers and bone models are expensive. So Greg decided to build his own surgical simulator to help his peers (and himself) improve basic psychomotor skills. Surgical simulators are complex and expensive, so where did Greg go to start his project? A large medical device company, a sawbones manufacturer, kick-starter maybe? Nope, Greg headed right over to his local Home Depot and started shopping. As we'll learn, Greg (along with several colleagues) created a simple, yet elegant system for practicing basic surgical hand skills, all for about $350 bucks! Today this system is used in teaching hospitals around the country and around the world. We're going to learn all about it and we're going to explore the broader challenges related to medical education and maintenance of skills.