Watch a cancer operation at any angle via Google Cardboard - CNET

Ahmed, who is just one of several people in the medical field who are experimenting with virtual reality health care, said he is determined to educate surgeons in "places you would not imagine people being able to access surgical training." He said 5 billion people out of a global population of 7 billion are unable to access surgery.

This doesn't just apply to medically qualified trainee surgeons. Ahmed has used virtual reality to teach some basic surgical skills to former Apple Chief Executive John Sculley and even let a curious recovering patient replay their own operation.

Next up, he is going to prove just how accessible the technology by bringing a 360-degree camera rig decked out with GoPros into the operating theater so he can show the world how he works on a consenting cancer patient.

The exact date of the operation is yet to be confirmed, but is provisionally penciled in for the first two weeks of April. More information will come from St Bartholomew's.

From Google Glass to haptic feedback

It's easy to forget in 2016 that operating theaters get their names from the rows of seating where trainees would perch, straining to observe the action in order to lea how to do it themselves. But technology has changed all this.

"You don't have to fight to see the operation anymore," said Dr. Ahmed. Now a trainee can watch an operation from a surgeon's point of view, even if they're thousands of miles away.

Ahmed has been instrumental in pioneering such teaching techniques. For two years, he tested using Google Glass to live-stream operations to his students, while fielding questions from them that appeared on the heads-up display.

Now he's moved onto virtual reality, which he believes has the potential to go beyond teaching technical skills needed to perform his job. "Surgery is so much more than that," he said, pointing out that leaing in an immersive environment helps the student to cope with what's going on around them in the operating theater and experience what it's like when things go wrong.