A case-control comparison of traditional and virtual-reality training in laparoscopic psychomotor performance

Learning hand-eye coordination is a crucial part of the training programme for junior laparoscopic surgeons. This study compares laparoscopic psychomotor performance from traditional standard abdominal box-training and virtual-reality training. Twenty-four right-hand dominant subjects with no experience in laparoscopy were required to complete a novel laparoscopic task. Eight subjects completed all six tasks on the Minimally Invasive Surgical Trainer Virtual Reality (MIST VR) training program. Another 16 subjects were case-matched to these subjects for gender, sight-corrected status and age (± 2 years). Eight of these subjects spent the same amount of time as their yoked MIST VR counterpart training on a traditional laparoscopic cutting task. The other eight subjects, the control group, received no training. Individuals who trained on the MIST VR program made significantly more correct incisions than their case-matched counterparts in the standard trained group (p < 0.05) and control group (p < 0.0001) and were also significantly more likely to use both hands to perform the task (p < 0.02). Virtual reality appears to offer potential as a laparoscopic laboratory-training tool for the acquisition of psychomotor skills that transfer to novel laparoscopic tasks.