Can virtual reality trainers improve the compliance discrimination abilities of trainee surgeons?

The assessment of tissue compliance using a handheld tool is an important skill in medical areas such as laparoscopic and dental surgery. The increasing prevalence of virtual reality devices raises the question of whether we can exploit these systems to accelerate the training of compliance discrimination in trainee surgeons. We used a haptic feedback device and stylus to assess the abilities of naïve participants to detect compliance differences with and without knowledge of results (KR) (groups 1 and 2), as well as the abilities of participants who had undergone repetitive training over several days (group 3).