Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) isn’t a new technology, but a research professor at the University of Washington has created the first TEE simulator that utilizes real patient images to practice the complex procedure, The Daily reports.

Currently, all commercially available TEE simulators use drawings instead of real images. Florence Sheehan, a research professor at UW’s Division of Cardiology, created the new simulator which consist of a mannequin, a diagnostic probe and a display monitor that allows cardiology fellows and anesthesiology residents at the university to practice the TEE technology without performing the invasive procedure on patients.

“We’re taking care of real patients,” Sheehan said in the story. “If we train with real images, the fellow will not have to retrain his eye when he is attending to a real patient. If you were learning to drive a car, you could learn by using a simulator, but the simulation would be much improved if you were training with real photos of a road as opposed to drawn images.”

The TEE simulator is almost ready for cardiology fellows to begin using.