Deep analysis of common aspects influencing the surgical process is an important prerequisite for the work on training and supports systems for the operating room (OR) of the future. The surgical instrument descriptions used by scrub nurses play an important role in the daily interaction with the surgeon. One common interruption of the surgical flow is a delay caused by a misunderstanding between the surgeon and the scrub nurse when requesting a certain surgical instrument. This paper presents the evaluation of a multi-center study, which was conducted to analyze and compare the instrument descriptions for 35 surgical instruments from four surgical domains given by 15 scrub nurses of three different clinics. The study results indicate central factors which affect the common understanding of surgical instrument descriptions.

In this article, a new Micromanipulator System (MMS-II) for middle ear surgery is presented. The purpose of this work was to develop a simple but effective manipulator that would enable the surgeon to move standard surgical instruments in a precise way even under non-ergonomic conditions. The MMS-II is lightweight, small, and easy to use; it requires no PC, besides a small microcontroller-based joystick console. Such features, together with a practicable sterilization concept and the availability of a multiplicity of surgical instruments, allow the system to be used in standard surgical procedures.