Investigating the Learning Curve Through Residency Training Using a Newly Developed VR-Based Laparoscopic Surgery Simulator

Laparoscopy, as a minimally invasive surgery has gained attention in recent years. It is important for the surgeons to train how to use this technique before entering the surgical room to reduce life and financial risks. This paper presents an experiment for validation of a new virtual reality based laparoscopic simulator called SinaSim. The effectiveness of using the simulator on skills improvement including controlling the handle, grasping an object, working with two hands simultaneously, hand-eye coordination and spatial perception is investigated. 6 tasks are presented and the criteria for accomplishing each task are represented. 10 residents of general surgery and gynecology participated in the study. Each participant was asked to accomplish each task. The paired t-test is employed to analyze the skill improvement for each task. According to the results, P values less than 0.05 are obtained for all tasks except for one task which is shown to be easy to accomplish and doesn't need too much effort. This outcome implies the successfulness of SinaSim in training the novices to improve their laparoscopic skills.