Efficacy of short-term training for acquisition of basic laparoscopic skills

Objective: To determine whether our newly developed short-term training program contributes to the acquisition of basic laparoscopic surgery skills. Design: Prospective study (Canadian Task Force Class II). Setting: University Hospital. Participants: Four obstetrics-gynecology residents who participated in our 2-month laparoscopic training course. Interventions: Virtual reality laparoscopic surgery simulator-based assessment of four basic tasks: (1) “camera manipulation”; (2) “eye-hand coordination”; (3) “two-handed maneuvers”; and (4) “cutting,” before and after the course. Measurements and main results: Mean times required to perform the tasks before and after training were compared. The mean times required to perform three of the four tasks (except camera manipulation) were significantly reduced after training. Total instrument path lengths were reduced, especially for instruments used by the dominant hand. Conclusion: Use of the virtual reality laparoscopic surgery simulator allowed us to objectively assess residents' acquisition of basic laparoscopic skills. We found that residents more readily acquired dominant-hand skills during their 2-month training. We conclude that our training system serves as an effective initial step towards the acquisition of the necessary laparoscopic surgery skills, even though residents do not actually perform surgeries during the training period