No virtual-reality helmet is required, as it might be if conventional surgery were being simulated.

ECONOMIST: What the surgeon saw . . .

Private insurance plans that cover conventional sinus surgery are likely to cover the balloon version, too.

FORBES: Balloon Therapy

But he said that because it was the first time an epidural had been used in heart surgery "we kept ready as a standby the conventional method of heart surgery through a heart and lung machine".

BBC: heart op

Conventional Lasik eye surgery costs a third of what it did ten years ago.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Conventional vets, meanwhile, tend toward more extreme surgery because it's easier to remove the entire tumor this way.

FORBES: Miracle Worker