Evaluation of haptic teaching approaches for laparoscopic surgery training

Area of Science:

• Surgical Education
• Medical Simulation
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Laparoscopic surgery, a minimally invasive surgery (MIS) technique, demands advanced skills.
• Current expert-led, one-on-one training is limited by time constraints.
• There is a need for scalable and effective training solutions for MIS.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a VR-based laparoscopic surgery simulator with guidance force display.
• To investigate different guidance force display approaches for surgical skill transfer.
• To improve the efficiency and quality of surgical training.

Main Methods:

• Developed a VR laparoscopic surgery simulator incorporating guidance force feedback.
• Implemented and compared two guidance force display methods: Instrument-guiding and Hand-guiding.
• Conducted evaluative experiments to assess skill transfer effectiveness.

Main Results:

• The Hand-guiding approach demonstrated superior suitability for skill transfer in specific tasks.
• The VR simulator with guidance force display offers increased training opportunities.
• Enhanced quality of limited expert-trainee interaction time was observed.

Conclusions:

• VR-based simulators with guidance force display can augment traditional surgical training.
• The Hand-guiding approach is a promising method for improving laparoscopic skill acquisition.
• This technology has the potential to address time limitations in expert surgical mentorship.