Neurosurgery training tool. Design as facilitator between disciplines for the improvement of medical devices

The propulsive thrust the medical sector has recently registered from the technological and methodological point of view is having substantial societal and economic impact modifying diagnostic and therapeutic practices, structures, and medical instruments. This requires that Design have to be placed at the center of a multi-disciplinary environment combining both medical and technological disciplines to develop solutions in which usability and technology coexist in a balanced manner improving treatments, diagnoses, training, and research. Design thus becomes a strategic element for stimulating incremental and radical innovation to obtain products and services that involve a multiplicity of competences and actors. Starting from these premises, the paper describes an ongoing multidisciplinary research project aiming to develop and prototype an anatomical training system of the spinal column, useful both for teaching surgical anatomy to medical students and for training experience of surgical techniques for youngsters and younger neurosurgeons.