Training, credentialing, and evaluation in laparoscopic surgery

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has become the procedure of choice for the treatment of gallbladder disease. Many general surgeons have incorporated laparoscopic cholecystectomy into their clinical practices, usually after completing a postgraduate didactic and laboratory animal training course. This additional formal training is both appropriate and necessary because laparoscopic surgery involves techniques different from those of traditional celiotomy, and most surgeons who completed their residencies prior to 1992 have had no laparoscopic training. Because additional formal training for practicing surgeons is necessary at this time, it is appropriate for hospitals to mandate separate granting of operative privileges for laparoscopic surgical procedures. In the near future, when graduates of general surgery residency programs have had training in laparoscopic surgery, separate privileges will no longer be necessary, and laparoscopic procedures should be included in the standard privilege category of biliary tract surgery. Once privileges in laparoscopic surgery are granted, laparoscopic operations, like all surgical procedures, should be monitored by peer review to ensure that they continue to be performed safely and appropriately. Only those laparoscopic procedures that are similar to open operations and have been shown by pilot studies to be safe (e.g., cholecystectomy) should be included currently in a surgeon's laparoscopic privileges. Laparoscopic procedures that are very different from proven open procedures and are investigational (e.g., inguinal herniorrhaphy) should be permitted by the hospital only as part of an experimental protocol monitored by an institutional review board. Only after their safety and efficacy have been established should they become part of standard privilege categories.