Scientific skill assessment of basic surgical dissection and overall laparoscopic performance

Abstract

To improve surgical education, objective and scientific skill assessments are required. There are two types of skill evaluations: Assessments of basic surgical skills and assessments of overall surgical performance. To establish a reliable assessment method for surgical dissection, we measured the force applied on the tip of a surgical instrument during dissection of the renal vessels of pigs. The experiments revealed that, during surgical dissection, expert laparoscopic surgeons applied vertical force at the beginning of the stroke and then horizontal force, with minimum vertical force, at the end of the stroke. As an assessment of overall surgical performance, the Endoscopic Surgical Qualification system was developed and has been used for 12 years in Japan. More than 3700 surgeons, including urologists, were determined to have appropriate laparoscopic surgical skills after assessments of unedited videos by referees.