Objective The purpose of this study was to assess the level of skill of laparoscopic surgeons in electrosurgery.Design Subjects were asked to complete a practical diathermy station and a written test of electrosurgical knowledge. Setting Tests were held in teaching and non-teaching hospitals.Sample Twenty specialists in obstetrics and gynaecology were randomly selected and tested on the Monash University gynaecological laparoscopic pelvi-trainer. Twelve candidates were consultants with 9 -28 years of practice in operative laparoscopy, and 8 were registrars with up to six years of practice in operative laparoscopy. Seven consultants and one registrar were from rural Australia, and three consultants were from New Zealand. Methods Candidates were marked with checklist criteria resulting in a pass/fail score, as well as a weighted scoring system. We retested 11 candidates one year later with the same stations. Main outcome measures No improvement in electrosurgery skill in one year of obstetric and gynaecological practice. Results No candidate successfully completed the written electrosurgery station in the initial test. A slight improvement in the pass rate to 18% was observed in the second test. The pass rate of the diathermy station dropped from 50% to 36% in the second test. Conclusion The study found ignorance of electrosurgery/diathermy among gynaecological surgeons. One year later, skills were no better.
Objective The purpose of this pilot study was to develop an assessment instrument to evaluate the level of skill of laparoscopic surgeons with regard to operative laparoscopy.
Subjects A total of 16 doctors working in obstetrics and gynaecology were tested on the Monash University gynaecological laparoscopic pelvi‐trainer. Eight candidates were consultants with 9–28 years of practice in operative laparoscopy, and eight were registrars with up to 6 years of practice in operative laparoscopy. Six consultants and one registrar were from rural Australia.
Design Subjects were asked to complete 10 laparoscopic tasks. Nine of these were designed to test manual dexterity skills and the correct use of laparoscopic instruments. One task tested theoretical knowledge of electrosurgery by means of four short‐answer questions. Candidates were marked on the basis of precision and speed. Heart rate measurements were taken 20 min prior to the test, at 5‐min intervals, and at the start and end of each task thereafter.
Results The highest pass rate (81.25%) was recorded for task 1, i.e. setting up the endoscopic visualization system. The median time to complete this task was 168 s. No candidate could repair a severed ovarian ligament with an intracorporeal knot within 5 min. No candidate could successfully answer all four electrosurgery questions.
Conclusion It is possible to objectively evaluate basic operative skills of laparoscopists by means of well‐structured tasks and marking criteria.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.