Virtual reality training for endoscopic surgery: voluntary or obligatory?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Training
• Virtual Reality Technology

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) simulators offer a platform for training basic endoscopic surgical skills outside the operating room.
• Integrating VR simulators into surgical training curricula presents challenges regarding optimal implementation and resident engagement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To survey the willingness of surgical residents to voluntarily train basic endoscopic surgical skills using a VR simulator.
• To assess the impact of voluntary access versus a competitive element on VR simulator usage in surgical training.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-one surgical residents had four months of unrestricted access to a VR simulator.
• A competitive element, including public announcement of scores and a prize, was introduced to encourage increased training time.

Main Results:

• Initially, only 10% of residents (2/21) used the VR simulator for 163 minutes over four months.
• After introducing competition, resident usage increased to 33% (7/21), with training time rising to 738 minutes.

Conclusions:

• Unrestricted, voluntary access to VR simulators does not significantly motivate surgical residents to train basic endoscopic skills.
• A competitive element yielded only a marginal increase in simulator usage.
• Effective utilization of expensive VR simulators for psychomotor skill development in endoscopic surgery likely necessitates integration as a mandatory component of the surgical curriculum.