Abstract

GONZALEZ-NEIRA, Eliana Maria; JIMENEZ-MENDOZA, Claudia Patricia; SUAREZ, Daniel R  and  RUGELES-QUINTERO, Saul. Objective evaluation of surgical competency for minimally invasive surgery with a collection of simple tests. Colomb. Med. [online]. 2016, vol.47, n.1, pp.45-50. ISSN 1657-9534.

Objective: This study aims at determining if a collection of 16 motor tests on a physical simulator can objectively discriminate and evaluate practitioners' competency level, i.e. novice, resident, and expert. Methods: An experimental design with three study groups (novice, resident, and expert) was developed to test the evaluation power of each of the 16 simple tests. An ANOVA and a Student Newman-Keuls (SNK) test were used to analyze results of each test to determine which of them can discriminate participants' competency level. Results: Four of the 16 tests used discriminated all of the three competency levels and 15 discriminated at least two of the three groups (α= 0.05). Moreover, other two tests differentiate beginners' level from intermediate, and other seven tests differentiate intermediate level from expert. Conclusion: The competency level of a practitioner of minimally invasive surgery can be evaluated by a specific collection of basic tests in a physical surgical simulator. Reduction of the number of tests needed to discriminate the competency level of surgeons can be the aim of future research.

Keywords : Proficiency-based training; laparoscopic skill assessment; simulation.

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