Assessing suturing skills in a self-guided learning setting: absolute symmetry error.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Skills Training
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Directed self-guidance is a promising novice training technique.
• Current evaluation methods for surgical skills often require expert supervision.
• There is a need for feasible, objective assessment tools for self-guided learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate absolute symmetry error as a feasible assessment tool for self-guided suturing skill acquisition.
• To determine if absolute symmetry error can detect performance improvements in novice trainees.
• To assess the correlation of absolute symmetry error with established performance measures.

Main Methods:

• Forty-eight undergraduate medical trainees practiced suturing and knot tying.
• Performance was assessed using Final Product Analysis (FPA), Surgical Efficiency Score (SES), and absolute symmetry error.
• Assessments were conducted at pretest, posttest, retention, and transfer phases.

Main Results:

• Absolute symmetry error detected significant performance improvements from pretest to posttest (P < 0.05).
• This novel measure showed moderate correlations with FPA and SES.
• The tool demonstrated feasibility for assessing self-guided suturing practice.

Conclusions:

• Absolute symmetry error is a potentially useful and feasible tool for approximating novice suturing and knot tying performance.
• This measure does not require expert or computer-based analysis, suggesting widespread applicability.
• Further research should explore its utility as a feedback mechanism in self-guided learning.