ST. LOUIS COUNTY – St. Louis County is getting a new simulation lab to give surgeons more “lifelike experience” without operating on a living patient.
MaxFi Surgical Simulations restores the circulatory system of the cadaver so the operator can practice on lifelike tissue without fear of failure. The process also warms the cadaver to 98.6 degrees, the ideal temperature of humans. It has helped young surgeons, the military and medical businesses improve their techniques and products.
The company has conducted labs across the globe, but this facility will be the first dedicated MaxFi lab of its kind, serving as both a bioskills lab and homebase for the company.
"The medical device community will benefit as they are constantly seeking facilities for lab work,” a MaxFi representative told Spectrum News. Local medical schools typically use their own labs, but MaxFi believes it could find value in the unique technology and equipment offered in their lab.
Dr. Bob Mills, the chief executive officer of MaxFi Surgical Simulations, says colleague Dr. Joss Fernandez, a thoracic and vascular surgeon at Boone Hospital Center in Columbia, Mo., developed a new and better simulation model than previous ones.
The company is based in Columbia, Mo., but with St. Louis being a centralized location boasting strong accessibility, establishing a lab there was a top priority. The new facillity will bring 24 jobs to the metropolitan area.
Medical companies like Johnson and Johnson, Medtronic, Baxter and others also operate using MaxFi's model for their own tests. Mills said at least 25 different companies used their simulation labs.
He adds they worked with the Mayo Clinic on developing a bladder transplant technique and the American Society of Transplant surgeons doing a class on liver transplants.
“Nothing (elsewhere), animal model or synthetic model or AI model that could duplicate what they’re wanting to achieve, and that is to take part of a liver from a live human and transplanted into another live human,” said Mills. “The physician said it was absolutely incredible and real as it could be.”
Another consumer of their simulations is the military, who’s used it to practice medical emergencies their soldiers could see in the war zone.
“We do a lot with the special forces and first responders–there’s nothing that can duplicate or simulate trauma to the groin area or the shoulder area, and this is when you’re out there either in war or different situations. There’s a lot of different wounds to those parts of the body, and one of the first things you’re trying to do is control the bleeding and we can simulate that.”
The best part of the simulation lab is users may feel at ease and not dread potential mistakes, the goal Dr. Fernandez aimed to achieve. MaxFi’s tissue simulation lab will help improve surgeons and products without the cost of life.
“Nobody’s going to get hurt when trying to utilize this and they can perfect their technique or their product,” said Mills. “It really is incredible. I mean, it’s one of the most self-gratifying jobs. I’ve had a lot of different ones in healthcare. To be able to go and work with physicians that are pioneering new areas of medicine and they let us know that this wouldn’t have been possible without our technology.”