From VR to OR: A Cincinnati Doctor Is Embracing 3D Technology in Pediatric Cardiology
Dr. Ryan Moore, BS’04, MD’08, is an advocate and trailblazer in a groundbreaking technology poised to revolutionize how surgeons operate on children’s hearts.
As a pediatric cardiologist and chief emerging technologies officer at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Moore has helped develop the VR Surgical Simulation Suite (VR3S). This real-time 3D technology allows surgeons to walk through a 3D “digital twin” of their patients’ hearts and customize plans for the procedure before the surgeon even enters the operating room. A surgeon in Ohio can help train a surgeon across the world in an operation, for example.
Growing up in Michigan City, Ind., Moore was surrounded by health-care professionals: his aunt worked as a pediatrician, his uncle specialized in infectious diseases, and his mother became a sonographer (a specialist in the use of ultrasonic imaging devices to produce diagnostic images, scans, and videos of human anatomy).
“Science always came easy to me, [as did] art, and I remember learning Photoshop at a young age,” recalls Moore, who says that his studies at IU were foundational because “the school was outstanding not just for art but for science, too.”
As if to emphasize his artistic credentials, Moore is an avid drawer of cartoons and is co-author of Hank the Heart, a children’s book designed to teach his patients, and his own children, about the heart. In addition to appealing graphics, age-appropriate “Heart Smart” facts are provided throughout the text and at the end of the book. Published in 2020, Hank the Heart is available from Blue Manatee Press.
Better Care Through Technology: Ryan Moore’s Journey
Learn about tools like surgery planning games and “Hank the Heart”—an educational anime-style heart aimed at teaching kids about heart health.
In the following interview, conducted in May 2025, Moore discusses the nuances of this unique technology, and what he finds especially fulfilling about training pediatric cardiologists in the VR space.
Q: What motivated you to work in this VR health-care sector?
Ryan Moore: We’ve always seen VR training being a big thing, but we wanted to bring it to the clinical practice, for a surgery that might be happening tomorrow. One of the major advances we saw, funnily enough, was Pokémon GO, which ties what we do back to gaming. Seeing the rise of multiplayer gaming networks gave us the idea to bring this VR tech into surgeons’ hands anywhere in the world. And that’s why we have Unity [a leading real-time 3D development platform] involved in our project.
And I’ve heard you use AI, as well.
RM: Multilingual translation is important for VR3S. We’re leveraging a lot of AI pieces to, first, create a 3D model, and then we use AI to do things like voice-to-text annotation, but then also immediate translation. So, we can translate really in any language. That’s why we have surgeons working with us from Israel, Colombia, Canada, and Brazil.
Tell us how this innovation first got off the ground.
RM: We got a grant in 2018 from the National Institutes of Health’s Accelerated Innovations Fund, and that really helped us to spearhead development. And then we added employees who work in animation, 3D modelling, augmented reality developers, folks from Unity.
The nice thing about VR is the connections it can foster. Once you become an expert in a certain field like pediatric cardiology, there’s only so many surgeons. The idea came to us of working together in a virtual space where they can use their hands as gaming controllers and manipulate the “heart” and essentially do the procedure before heading into the OR.
Can you walk us through how this kind of VR technology works?
RM: Let’s look at a heart transplant operation. The patient would get an CT scan or MRI, and we would take the imaging and create a 3D version of the patient’s anatomy. We would upload it into the cloud-based platform, which allows us to share it with anyone. Someone from our team would then make annotations and show how to do the operation, which can then be viewed by, say, a surgeon in Japan.
What do you find particularly fulfilling about the work you do?
RM: Hundreds of thousands of kids die every year from congenital heart disease and the survival rate is greater than 90 percent if they’ve got good access to care. But in low- to middle-income countries, tech resources and training are limited, and that’s where the majority of patients are dying. This metaverse we’re creating can help with that issue.
I remember one mother who was crying when she was immersed in the VR space viewing an image of her child’s heart condition. I thought she might be affected by motion sickness [caused by the VR headset]. But no, she had never really understood her child’s condition until now. And that’s a really impactful thing for me.
Written By
David Silverberg
David Silverberg is a Toronto writer who regularly writes for BBC News, MIT Technology Review, The Globe & Mail, and Princeton Alumni Weekly.