Scrub Trainer

During surgery, the surgical scrub technician (scrub) hands the doctor each instrument they need when they need it. The scrub manages tables full of instruments and supplies, knows the steps of the surgery, and reads its progress by looking at the surgical field, the part of patient being operated on. This role requires training, a concern for Boston Children’s Hospital and their simulation based training group, Immersive Design System (IDS), and the surgical scrub educators at the hospital’s General Surgery and CVOR departments.

IDS hired me to build scrub training modules that could be run on an iPad, MAC, PC, or in a VR headset (like Quest 3). The user is in a virtual operating room, with a virtual table of instruments, and a virtual surgeon with their hand out. A voice asks for the instruments in order, while the user can see a video of the surgical field. See the image of the iPad version, shown here.

The software experts at IDS further specified an authoring tool, called the Scrub Engine which allows them to configure new modules much like assembling a power-point side deck. I handle the final packaging.

IDS hired me to construct this Scrub Engine from the ground up in Unity. The internal design of the code is entirely mine and now functional. I also constructed the user interface (Unity Layout) for all future modules, collaborating closely with senior scrub training experts and educational psychologists at IDS.

Together, we used the Scrub Engine to construct two training modules, which we expect to pilot in Spring 2026. I did all the photography and artwork to construct a beginning library of surgical instruments, useable in all modules. Finally, I developed the back-end networking code that reports learner progress to IDS, as they used the modules.