Can we continue to ignore gender differences in performance on simulation trainers?

Background: There are differences between the genders in their innate performances on simulation trainers, which may impair accurate assessment of psychomotor skills.

Methods: The performance of fourth-year students with no exposure to the Minimally Invasive Surgical Trainer compared based on gender, and other psychomotor skills.

Results: Our study included 16 male and 16 female students. After adjusting for choice of medical specialty (P<.001), current video game use (P=.6), and experience in the operating room (P=.4), female sex was an independent factor for worse performance (P=.04) in multivariate models. Women took more time than men (P<.01) and made more errors (29 versus 25 on 3 reps, P<.01).

Conclusions: Among medical students with no previous exposure to laparoscopic trainers, female students perform worse than male students after adjusting for confounding factors. This difference must be recognized by training programs while using simulators for training and evaluation.