Acquiring laparoscopic manipulative skills: a virtual tissue dissection training module.

Virtual environments for training manipulative skills in laparoscopic surgery are now well established as research areas. Tissue dissection however has not yet been adequately addressed. We have developed a virtual training module in which the task is to dissect a 3D tissue model using a simulated L-hook.

On defining metrics for assessing laparoscopic surgical skills in a virtual training environment.

One of the key components of any training environment for surgical education is a method that can be used for assessing surgical skills. Traditionally, defining such a method has been difficult and based mainly on observations. However, through advances in modeling techniques and computer hardware and software, such methods can now be developed using combined visual and haptic rendering of a training scene.

Eye trackers in a virtual laparoscopic training environment.

Virtual laparoscopic training systems have been shown to differentiate between the skills of experienced and novice laparoscopic surgeons. Measures such as total number of errors and completion time are used to assess skill, but these metrics do not give much insight into the processes behind skilled behavior in simulated laparoscopic tasks. The eye gaze of 2 groups of subjects, one experienced with laparoscopic surgery, and the other with no experience, was recorded while they performed an aiming task in a virtual laparoscopic trainer.