“you direct me, hehehe"

48-year-old Ellen Wright is playing with the simulator used to practice surgery... to remove a tumor from her brain.

The woman from Smiths Cove, Nova Scotia was the first patient to benefit from a virtual brain surgery using a simulator.

That rehearsal and then the actual operation went so well this week... Wright is cracking jokes about her virtual brain operation.

"I don't think anybody would want me as their surgeon I don't believe," Write says.

Wright had a non-cancerous tumor that was giving her migraines, making her dizzy.

But the risk of surgery was giving her second thoughts... she might not be able to talk again.

Fortunately, her neurosurgeon David Clarke did a dry-run on this machine.

A brain surgery simulator mimics the feeling of pulverizing and vacuuming up the tumor.

Doctor Clarke demonstrated today to a group of N-R-C researchers and doctors and others who teamed up to build the simulator.

"a critical aspect of the virtual reality surgery is that we have a re-set button” Doctor Clark says, “and I think this is a critical thing because we can do it as many times as it takes to get it right before we do the actual surgery."

Now what makes the brain surgery simulator unique in the world is this. the patient's own anatomical data, in this case Ellen Wright's information, was used to create a virtual model of her brain.

A realistic rehearsal to get the real operation right, prototype simulators will be rolled out to teaching hospitals in five cities across the country.

The goal is to gain Health Canada approval so that the simulator can be sold... and more patients like Wright can have the comfort knowing their surgeon was able to practice the brain surgery first.