The new Australian Medical Robotics Academy (AMRA) features cutting edge surgical robots and virtual simulators to enable surgeons to hone their skills before live surgery. The training programme is derived from the airline industry, with simulation training allowing multiple risk-free attempts at surgical procedures until they are perfected. Please join AMRA and Jacobs for a catered seminar which will focus on the combined clinical, training and social use of the facility itself as well as demonstrating the manifold technologies, both robotic and virtual simulator, that serve to train surgeons over multiple repeats of a procedure prior to qualifying to operate on live patients.
Videos
Professor Tony Costello, AM
Professor Costello pioneered robotic surgery in Australia. In 2003 he performed the first open radical prostatectomy using robotic surgery in Australia. This was performed at Epworth Hospital which was then the fifth machine in the world. Since 2003, he has performed over 2,500 robotic surgeries..
Ben Smart
Over the last twenty years Jacobs’ Victorian Health Team Lead has focused on the healthcare sector in Australasia, designing and delivering cutting-edge projects such as AMRA and contributing to major projects such as the Royal Children’s, Monash Children’s, New Bendigo and New Footscray Hospitals. Ben’s central involvement in the design of the Four Seasons at Sayan in Bali was recognised with awards for “Best Hotel in the World” in 2005 and 2018.
Captain Matthew Gray - Retired
Matthew has been a member of numerous safety and learning development committees and introduced Evidence Based Training into the pilot training curriculum in Qantas. He has a deep interest in human factors and training system development that spans different disciplines and involves the interaction of people with complex tasks.
Dr Brooke Farrugia
Dr Farrugia holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical, Honours), Master of Biomedical Engineering, and PhD (2010) from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. In January 2019 Dr Farrugia relocated to the University of Melbourne to join the Department of Biomedical Engineering as a Senior Lecturer. Her most significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge has been through her work developing poly(oxazoline) hydrogels, and her contribution to the development of melt electrowriting, a form of 3D printing, and the development of biomimetic materials for growth factor delivery. Dr Farrugia is driving a project in collaboration with AMRA to replace cadavers and animals with 3D printed organ models for surgical training.
Dr Daniel Costello
Dr Daniel Costello is a Surgical Registrar at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. In 2019 he commenced a Master of Surgery at the University of Melbourne with a focus on robotic surgery education. His thesis Remodelling Surgical Education and Training in Robotics (ReSET Robotics) aims to validate an enhanced curriculum for robotic surgery training that includes virtual reality simulation and synthetic organ models in place of traditional surgical methods of training in the operating room, live animal surgery and cadaver surgery.