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Hand motion patterns of Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery certified and noncertified surgeons
D Wayne Overby1, Robert A Watson1
1Department of Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7211, USA.
Background:
With the increasing use of simulation in surgical training there is an increasing need for low cost methods of objective assessment.
Methods:
Hand-motion data (3 degrees of freedom) were acquired using microelectromechanical gyroscope tracking devices worn on both hands during an intracorporeal suture/knot-tying laparoscopic task performed by FLS-certified and non-FLS-certified surgeons. Each data sample was processed into a symbolic time series, and the Lempel-Ziv complexity metric was calculated for each hand for the whole task and the first 60 seconds of the task from the dominant hand.
Results:
FLS-certified surgeons had more complex hand-motion patterns. This was statistically significant only for the dominant hand (P = .02) but was still statistically significant when calculated from the first 60 seconds of the task (P = .04) and therefore independent of the total time taken to complete the task.
Conclusions:
Hand-motion patterns were quantified and shown to be different between FLS-certified and non-FLS-certified surgeons using low-cost microelectromechanical technology and the Lempel-Ziv complexity metric.
