Shortcut assessment: Can residents' operative performance be determined in the first five minutes of an operative task?

BACKGROUND: The aim was to validate the potential use of a single, early procedure, operative task as a predictive metric for overall performance. The authors hypothesized that a shortcut psychomotor assessment would be as informative as a total procedural psychomotor assessment when evaluating laparoscopic ventral hernia repair performance on a simulator. METHODS: Using electromagnetic sensors, hand motion data were collected from 38 surgery residents during a simulated laparoscopic ventral hernia repair procedure. Three time-based phases of the procedure were defined: Early Phase (start time through completion of first anchoring suture), Mid Phase (start time through completion of second anchoring suture), and Total Operative Time. Correlations were calculated comparing time and motion metrics for each phase with the final laparoscopic ventral hernia repair score. RESULTS: Analyses revealed that execution time and motion, for the first anchoring suture, predicted procedural outcomes. Greater execution times and path lengths correlated to lesser laparoscopic ventral hernia repair scores (r = -0.56, P = .0008 and r = -0.51, P = .0025, respectively). Greater bimanual dexterity measures correlated to Greater LVH repair scores (r = + 0.47, P = .0058). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides validity evidence for use of a single, early operative task as a shortcut assessment to predict resident performance during a simulated laparoscopic ventral hernia repair procedure. With the continued development and decreasing costs of motion technology, faculty should be well-versed in the use of motion metrics for performance measurements. The results strongly support the use of dexterity and economy of motion (path length + execution time) metrics as early predictors of operative performance.

Exploring hand coordination as a measure of surgical skill.

BACKGROUND: The study aim was to identify residents' coordination between dominant and nondominant hands while grasping for sutures in a laparoscopic ventral hernia repair procedure simulation. We hypothesize residents will rely on their dominant and nondominant hands unequally while grasping for suture. METHODS: Surgical residents had 15 min to complete the mesh securing and mesh tacking steps of a laparoscopic ventral hernia repair procedure. Procedure videos were coded for manual coordination events during the active suture grasping phase. Manual coordination events were defined as: active motion of dominant, nondominant, or both hands; and bimanual or unimanual manipulation of hands. A chi-square test was used to discriminate between coordination choices. RESULTS: Thirty-six residents (postgraduate year, 1-5) participated in the study. Residents changed manual coordination types during active suture grasping 500 times, ranging between 5 and 24 events (M = 13.9 events, standard deviation [SD] = 4.4). Bimanual coordination was used most (40%) and required the most time on average (M = 20.6 s, SD = 27.2), while unimanual nondominant coordination was used least (2.2%; M = 7.9 s, SD = 6.9). Residents relied on their dominant and nondominant hands unequally (P < 0.001). During 24% of events, residents depended on their nondominant hand (n = 120), which was predominantly used to operate the suture passer device. CONCLUSIONS: Residents appeared to actively coordinate both dominant and nondominant hands almost half of the time to complete suture grasping. Bimanual task durations took longer than other tasks on average suggesting these tasks were characteristically longer or switching hands required a greater degree of coordination. Future work is necessary to understand how task completion time and overall performance are affected by residents' hand utilization and switching between dominant and nondominant hands in surgical tasks.