Introduction: Laparoscopic skills training is usually reserved for surgical residents who have some experience in performing open surgical procedures. This study examined the outcomes of training 4th year medical students matched in a surgical specialty (who had no prior open case experience as primary surgeon) in the skills tasks of the SAGES FLS program.
Methods: Over a 3 year period (2006 to 2008), nineteen 4th year medical students who had matched in general or urologic surgical residency were instructed in the SAGES FLS drills (Peg Transfer, Pattern Cutting, EndoLoop Placement, Extracorporeal Knot Tying, Intracorporeal Knot Tying) as a part of a 6 week skills preparation course for surgical internship. Students participated in one 2.5 hour instructional session and were then given 24-hour access to laparoscopic trainer box equipped with the FLS materials Students were asked to record practice times after training. At the end of the course, after independent practice and one additional optional instruction session, the FLS manual skills exam was administered by an FLS approved proctor and was scored using standard FLS criteria (passing score = 54 for each task). Where appropriate, either a Mann-Whitney or unpaired T-test was used for statistical analysis; data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation.
Results: Eleven male and 8 female students participated. Mean task times and mean composite task scores for all 19 students are shown below in Table 1.
Additionally, mean practice times were available for students participating in the 2006 and 2008 (but not in 2007) courses, with an overall mean of 210 minutes (range = 45–600 minutes). Practice times in 2006 averaged 131 minutes (range = 45-315 minutes) compared to 303 minutes (range 150-600 minutes) in 2008 (p
Session: Poster of Distinction
Program Number: P004
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