Georg Wiese, MD, Paula Veldhuis, Steve Eubanks, MD, FACS, Scott W Bloom, MD, FRCSC, FACS. Florida Hospital Institute for Surgical Advancement
Introduction: Robotic surgery is a specialized skill which requires time and resources to master. In a general surgery residency program that seeks to train competent surgeons in both open, laparoscopic and endoscopic techniques it is difficult to see where adding robotic training will be of benefit and at what cost this will be to the remaining surgical skills. We therefore sought to ascertain robotic surgery’s current role in the training of new general surgeons by soliciting the opinions of current general surgery program directors on the role of robotic surgery at their respective institutions.
Methods: An IRB approved survey was created and sent to General Surgery program directors across the country to assess how robotic surgery training is being integrated into current surgical training. The survey was sent via email to publicly available email addresses from the ACGME website of program directors. It was voluntary in nature and consisted of questions regarding current status of robotic training in Residency as well as future goals.
Results: Overall response from our PD survey were at 12% of the 266 surgical programs with addresses available via ACGME, though responses continue to be submitted at the time of this abstract. Approximately 48% of all respondents are from independent, university based programs. 85% felt that robotics was an emerging skillset important for residents to master versus 15% feeling that it was more appropriate for fellowship. All respondents noted that robotic surgeons were present at their institution, 90% within the core faculty, and 50% indicated that they were actively recruiting robotically trained surgeons. Additionally, 95% of programs indicated that residents were exposed to robotic surgery, 81% of these on core general surgery rotations. 62% of respondents indicated that they had a formal robotic training curriculum with 81% of programs taking measures to integrate robotics into the future curriculum though 71% lacked specific milestones for such training. Finally, opinion was evenly divided among respondents as to whether one could sign off on residents to perform robotic assisted cases upon completion of PGY5 year with 45% agreeing with that statement and the remainder indicating some additional training would be necessary.
Conclusions: Our study highlights the emerging field of robotic assisted MIS surgery and its increasing role in residency training. It is evident from the data, that robotic surgery is a growing part of residency experience. Importantly, however, milestones were significantly lacking for determining resident progress in robotic training.
Presented at the SAGES 2017 Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.
Abstract ID: 87053
Program Number: P309
Presentation Session: iPoster Session (Non CME)
Presentation Type: Poster