Desitra: A simulator for teaching situated decision making in dental surgery

Abstract

© Copyright 2016 ACM. Use of simulation to teach decision making in surgery is challenging partly due to the situated nature of the decisions, with situation awareness playing a critical role in making high quality decisions. Thus simulation systems need to be able to provide the key cues needed in making decisions with high fidelity. In this paper we present the first version of Desitra, a simulation environment for teaching decision making in dental surgery. System design was driven by an observational study of teaching sessions for endodontic surgery in the operating room which identified perceptual cues used in decision making as well as tutorial intervention strategies used by surgeons. Desitra provides an open environment for learning decision making - students carry out dental procedures and are free to make mistakes. The pedagogical module monitors the student actions and intervenes when students make mistakes, providing as little guidance as necessary to keep students on a productive learning path. The system is implemented to run on Android tablets to be maximally accessible. Preliminary evaluation of the system shows that Desitra effectively captures key perceptual cues.