Droiders’ MedicAR is a Google Glass app made to assist students studying to become surgeons

MedicAR is a Google Glass app made to assist students studying to become surgeons

App-developing startup Droiders unveiled a Google Glass app MedicAR that uses augmented reality to assist students studying to become surgeons. It’s made to guide students through certain procedures, showing them where to cut, what tools to use, and how to close things back up afterwards.

A temporary tattoo on the patient’s skin is required to serve as a marker, which the surgeon aims Glass towards. It then displays an image on the screen that guides the wearer through a given surgery.

Aside from its educational value, MedicAR can also serve as an aid to improve safety issues in surgical interventions, especially for common procedures among junior surgeons and even for uncommon ones among experts.

During a recent demonstration, Dr. Homero Rivas, assistant professor of surgery (digestive surgery) and director of innovative surgery at Stanford University, used the application with an anatomical human model to perform an open reduction and internal fixation of a left complex clavicular fracture. The demonstration took place in the Goodman Simulation Center at Stanford, and you can see the video of the demonstration below.

Droiders’ MedicAR application for Glass uses Qualcomm Vuforia, an augmented reality platform that enables apps to see and connect digital experiences to physical products.