An objective and automated method for assessing surgical skill in endoscopic sinus surgery using eye-tracking and...

Area of Science:

• Surgical Education and Assessment
• Medical Technology
• Data Science in Medicine

Background:

• Surgical skill assessment is vital for competency, training, and certification.
• Current methods need to be unbiased, objective, and accurate.
• Tool-motion and eye-gaze data offer potential for objective surgical skill evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and test a statistical model for quantitatively and objectively evaluating surgical skill.
• To investigate the utility of tool-motion and eye-gaze data in surgical skill assessment.
• To apply the model to endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS).

Main Methods:

• Collected data from 378 trials involving 7 expert and 13 novice surgeons performing 9 ESS tasks.
• Utilized an electromagnetic tracker for tool and endoscope motion data.
• Employed an infrared eye tracker to record surgeon's eye gaze during procedures.

Main Results:

• The model achieved 94.6% accuracy in identifying expert surgeons' skill levels.
• The model correctly recognized novice surgeons' skill levels with 88.6% accuracy.
• Experimental results validated the model's effectiveness.

Conclusions:

• An objective and unbiased method for assessing endoscopic sinus surgeon skill was developed.
• The proposed method successfully distinguishes between expert and novice surgical skill levels.
• This approach can improve surgical training and credentialing.