Comprehensive Laparoscopic Curriculum for Medical Students

Unity Health Toronto

Status: Completed

Conditions: Laparoscopic Surgery; Education

Treatments: Other: Curriculum

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01857180

Med Student Lap Curriculum

Details and patient eligibility

About

Laparoscopic surgery has become the standard approach to a vast variety of surgical procedures. Due factors such as 2D- to 3D conversion, reduced tactile sensation, amplification of tremor and fulcrum effect of the abdominal wall, surgeons require a different set of skills than in open access surgery. Acknowledging this, several comprehensive curricula have been developed to teach basic skills as well as advanced laparoscopic procedures. Despite a recent emphasis on early exposure of medical students to surgery no designated curricula have been developed to introduce medical students to the technique of laparoscopic surgery.

Participation in an introductory curriculum in laparoscopic surgery results in improved cognitive and technical performance compared to self-directed learning. The greater homogeneity and fewer dropouts amongst those in the curriculum group suggest that a structured curriculum is essential in ensuring standardization of clinically relevant training. An introductory curriculum for medical students should be delivered in a structured and standardized fashion prior to clinical exposure in order to maintain motivation and enhance learning.

Enrollment: 24 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• first and second year medical students

Exclusion criteria

• previous exposure to laparoscopy or laparoscopic simulation

Trial design

24 participants in 2 patient groups

Curriculum

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in the curriculum group took part in a structured, comprehensive curriculum consisting of a 1 hour didactic cognitive component, a 1 hour didactic non-technical (team-based skills) component, and 6 hours of structured technical skills practice in peg transfer, intracorporeal suture, and VR simulator tasks. Participants had the opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussion with experts after the didactic sessions, and received subjective feedback from circulating residents in addition to objective feedback in the technical skills tasks.

Treatment:

Other: Curriculum

Self-directed

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants in the control (self-directed) group took part in 8 hours of self-directed learning with written materials for cognitive and non-technical skills components and unstructured surgical simulation practice of technical skills with only objective feedback from the simulator for the VR tasks or time for the peg transfer and intracorporeal suture tasks.