Creating standardized process for training new surgeons in robotic surgery

Editor's Note

Automated performance metrics can distinguish surgeon expertise during anastomoses and create an objective, standardized way to train new surgeons, this study finds.

Researchers used a data recorder plugged into a robotic surgery system to evaluate expert and novice surgeons’ movements for 70 vesicourethral anastomoses (total of 1,745 stitches) during robotic assisted radical prostatectomies.

They found that experts outperformed novices in completion time, instrument movement efficiency, and cameral manipulations. Experts also had fewer needle-driving attempts and less tissue trauma.

The data helped the researchers decode surgical skills, develop a needle-driving gesture classification system, and create a training tutorial.

Standardizing robotic anastomoses and using a methodically developed tutorial may improve robotic surgical training, the researchers concluded.