Systematic instruction of arthroscopic knot tying with the ArK Trainer: an objective evaluation tool.

Purpose: A Proficiency Formula was introduced as an objective self-evaluation method for evaluating basic arthroscopic knot tying in a laboratory setting. The correlation between the Proficiency Formula and gold standard pass/fail dichotomy was demonstrated, as well as with other popular evaluation tools--task-specific checklist (TSC) and global rating scale (GRS).

Method: A step-by-step video tutorial was used to instruct 35 medical students on how to tie an arthroscopic Samsung Medical Center (SMC) knot secured by three half hitches.