Daniel A Hashimoto, MD, MS2, Denise W Gee, MD, FACS2, Roy Phitayakorn, MD, MHPE, FACS2, Elan R Witkowski, MD2, Emil Petrusa, PhD2, Ramakrishna P Parchuri1, Ozanan R Meireles, MD, FACS2. 1Department of Perioperative Clinical Engineering, Massachusetts General Hospital, 2Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital
Introduction: Surgery provides a unique opportunity to utilize telementoring for procedural education and quality improvement, particularly for the adoption of new techniques or technologies. The development of dedicated surgical telementoring platforms has increased the ease of use of telementoring through additional remote features such as camera and laser pointer control to facilitate the role of the mentor. We present an experience in which telementoring was conducted in the presence of a live audience over a two-day period between a mentor at SAGES Meeting 2016 and an operating surgeon at a US hospital.
Methods and Setup: A telementoring booth was set up at SAGES 2016 with a dedicated, secure ethernet connection established to transmit audiovisual data between a US hospital and SAGES. Minimum bandwidth of 600kbps with a latency of <300ms was set. The Storz VisitOR1 telementoring device was utilized to connect an experienced surgeon (mentee) at the hospital with another experienced surgeon (mentor) at SAGES. Principles established by the SAGES Project 6 Telementoring Initiative were followed.
The two surgeons selected to participate had a pre-established relationship as partners in practice and were both experienced with the case to be telementored – laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG). Both agreed in advance to engage in telementoring where the mentor would remotely proctor the mentee through performing LSG using the mentor’s preferred techniques. The patients who were operated on consented to the telementoring process.
To prevent the audience from distracting the telementor during the operations, a commentator, who was also experienced with the procedure, was assigned to explain the technology being utilized, the progress of the case, and the principles of safe telementoring.
Results: Two operations were performed in the telementoring framework with an audience, and each of the two surgeons performed one case as mentor and one as mentee. Both surgeons were satisfied with the connection quality and the educational value of the telementoring session and reported telestration capabilities assisted in clearly relaying instructions. One surgeon did note that the mentor console required navigating through many menus to accomplish certain tasks and would have preferred a simpler interface or more in-depth training on use of the console.
Conclusion: Telementoring can be successfully and safely performed with an audience, allowing for the educational value of an operation to expand to more learners. The Project 6 guidelines provide principles that are effective in setting up safe telementoring scenarios.
Presented at the SAGES 2017 Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.
Abstract ID: 78138
Program Number: S079
Presentation Session: SAGES Got Talent : Resident & Fellow Scientific Session
Presentation Type: ResFel
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