Developing a Curriculum to Teach Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery

Unity Health Toronto

Status: Completed

Conditions: Education; Simulation; Laparoscopy; Technical Skills Training

Treatments: Procedure: curricular training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01371136

SMH10-059

Details and patient eligibility

About

Although a significant amount of work has been done to validate simulators as viable systems to teach technical skills outside the operating room, the next necessary step is to integrate simulator training into a comprehensive curriculum. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a comprehensive ex-vivo curriculum for laparoscopic colorectal surgery. This curriculum will include training on a virtual reality simulator, cognitive training and cadaver lab training. The investigators will assess the effectiveness of the curriculum by conducting a randomized single blinded controlled trial. The investigators will be comparing the technical performance of curricular trained and non-trained residents in the operating room, during a procedure on a patient. The investigators hypothesize that surgical residents who participate in the curriculum will have superior technical proficiency and cognitive knowledge relating to performing laparoscopic colorectal surgery compared to conventionally trained residents.

Enrollment: 25 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• resident in general surgery
• post graduate year (PGY) 2 or higher
• performed less than 10 laparoscopic colorectal procedures independently

Trial design

25 participants in 2 patient groups

Curricular Trained

Experimental group

Description:

Residents in the curricular training group will participate in the entire ex-vivo training curriculum. They will train to proficiency on a virtual reality simulator. This training program has 8 tasks at an "easy", "medium" and "hard" level. They will also participate in a cognitive training component. This consists of self-directed reading, and a video training component. In the video training component, residents will watch videos of laparoscopic right and sigmoid colectomies with a staff facilitator. Finally, all residents in the intervention group will participate in a cadaver lab where they will perform a laparoscopic right or sigmoid colectomy on a cadaver.

Treatment:

Procedure: curricular training

conventional residency training

No Intervention group

Description:

These residents proceed through surgical residency training as usual