Grant targets surgical learning

By Communications Staff
January 13, 2012

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University of Western Ontario researchers Gavin Buckingham and Melvyn A. Goodale, both of the Western’s Brain and Mind Institute, recently received a one-year $48,000 Health Research Grant from the Physicians’ Services Incorporated Foundation.

BUCKINGHAM

GOODALE

LEBEL

Goodale, a Western Psychology professor, serves as the institute’s director; Buckingham is a Psychology postdoctoral fellow.

This interdisciplinary research team, led by Dr. Marie-Eve Lebel, a University Hospital orthopedic surgeon, and Dr. Sayra Christancho, Centre for Education Research and Innovation, in collaboration with Dr. John Haverstock, London Health Sciences Centre, and Dr. Kenneth Faber, Lawson Health Research Institute, aims to improve the way medical students and surgical residents learn surgical tasks which are difficult to practice. To this end, the team will examine the optimal strategies for observational using a state-of-the-art virtual reality orthopaedic surgery simulator.

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What is The Brain and Mind Institute?

Some of The University of Western Ontario's most internationally recognized research has been conducted in the field of neuroscience.

From understanding childhood development to deciphering the neural basis for cognitive functions, Western is cultivating an integrated approach to studies of the brain that bring together some of the most accomplished minds at the forefront of neuroscience research.

Dedicated to mapping the mind from single neurons to the brain as a whole, researchers at the The Brain and Mind Institute  collaborate with multiple faculties at Western, Robarts Research Institute in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and benefits from strong links with clinicians and clinical scientists at London Health Sciences Centre.