Everyone wants their surgeon to be perfectly prepared, but there are few affordable ways for medical residents to practice without putting patients at risk. Virtual-reality simulators help, but they have at least one major limitation. “You can’t touch the environment in a meaningful way,” says Richard Vincent, CEO of FundamentalVR, whose VR surgical simulator fixes that by incorporating haptic feedback (similar to a smartphone’s vibration) so doctors can “feel” their actions as if they were really performing surgery. Crucially, the system uses hardware-agnostic technology and costs as little as $8,000—far less than traditional training systems—which makes it more accessible to surgeons around the world. Some 50 hospitals are already using it, including big names like the Mayo Clinic