Validation of a Novel Needle Holder to Train Advanced Laparoscopy Skills to Novices in a Simulator Environment

Tele-mentoring - a way to expand laparoscopic simulator training for medical students over large distances: a prospective randomized pilot study

BACKGROUND

Studies have shown the clinical benefits of laparoscopic simulator training. Decreasing numbers of operations by surgical residents have further increased the need for surgical simulator training. However, many surgical simulators in Sweden are often insufficiently used or not used at all. Furthermore, large geographical distances make access to curriculum-based surgical simulator training at established simulator centres difficult. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether tele-mentoring (TM) could be well tolerated and improve basic laparoscopic surgical skills of medical students 900 km away from the teacher.

METHODS

Twenty students completed an informed consent and a pre-experimental questionnaire. The students were randomized into two groups: (1) TM (N = 10), receiving instructor feedback via video-link and (2) control group (CG, N = 10) with lone practice. Initial warm-up occurred in the Simball Box simulator with one Rope Race task followed by five consecutive Rope Race and three Peg Picker tasks. Afterwards, all students completed a second questionnaire.

RESULTS

The whole group enjoyed the simulator training (prescore 73.3% versus postscore 89.2%, P < 0.0001). With TM, the simulator Rope Race overall score increased (prescore 30.8% versus postscore 43.4%; P = 0.004), and the distance that the laparoscopic instruments moved decreased by 40% (P = 0.015), indicating better precision, whereas in the CG it did not. In Peg Picker, the overall scores increased, whereas total time and distance of the instruments decreased in both groups, indicating better performance and precision.

CONCLUSIONS

Simulation training was highly appreciated overall. The TM group showed better overall performance with increased precision in what we believe to be the visuospatially more demanding Rope Race tasks compared to the CG. We suggest that surgical simulator tele-mentoring over long distances could be a viable way to both motivate and increase laparoscopic basic skills training in the future.

Use of saliva stress biomarkers to estimate novice male endoscopist's stress during training in a high-end simulator

OBJECTIVE

Simulated endoscopic training can be challenging and stressful for the novice trainee. The absence of a reliable stress detection method during simulated endoscopic training makes estimating trainees' mental stress difficult to quantify. This study concomitantly measures the responses of four saliva stress biomarkers and compares them to the video score (VS) achieved by novice endoscopists in a reproducibly stressful simulation environment.

METHODS

Thirty-six male endoscopy naïve surgery residents were enrolled. After an orientation phase, a saliva specimen was collected for cortisol (sC), alpha-amylase (sAA), Chromogranin A (sCgA), and immunoglobulin A (sIgA) measurements (baseline phase, BL). Thereafter, the simulation exercise phase (E) started, practicing in the Fundamentals of Endoscopic Surgery Skills module (GI-Bronch Mentor). Immediately after, a second saliva sample for measuring the above-cited biomarkers was collected. The whole experiment was videotaped, and the VS was calculated. The percentage (E-BL)_diff of each of the four saliva biomarkers was calculated and examined for correlation to VS.

RESULTS

sCgA_diff showed the best correlation with VS, followed by sAA_diff.

CONCLUSIONS

sCgA and sAA, are saliva stress biomarkers that are easy to collect non-invasively and showed the best correlation with novice endoscopist's performance in our simulation setting, and therefore, they could be used for monitoring stress.

The Artisential® Articulated Laparoscopic Forceps: A Dry Lab Study to Examine Dexterity and Learning Effects in Operators with Different Levels of Laparoscopic Experience

PURPOSE

The advent of robotic surgery has highlighted the advantages of articulation. This dry-lab study examined the dexterity and learning effect of a new articulated laparoscopic instrument: the ArtiSential® forceps (LIVSMED, Seongnam, Republic of Korea).

METHODS

A peg board task was designed. Three groups of volunteers with varying levels of laparoscopic expertise were organized to perform the task: expert, intermediate and novice. The participants performed the task using articulated and straight instruments, once before a 30-min training session and once afterwards. The times required to perform the task were recorded. The performances were analyzed and compared between the groups as well as between the straight and articulated instruments.

RESULTS

The experts were significantly faster than the novices with both instruments before the 30-min training session (p = 0.0317 for each instrument). No significant time difference was found among the three groups after the 30-min training session. The decrease in the time required to perform the peg-transfer task with the articulated instrument was significantly greater in the novice and intermediate groups (p = 0.0159 for each group). No significant difference in time reduction was observed between the groups with the straight instrument. Regardless of the user, the articulated device was associated with faster task performance than the straight device after 8 hours of training (p = 0.0039).

CONCLUSION

The ArtiSential® articulated device can improve dexterity. A significantly greater learning effect was observed in the novice and intermediate groups in comparison with experts. A plateau in the learning curve was observed after a few hours of training.