Prospective cohort study on surgeons' response to equipment failure in the laparoscopic environment

Equipment malfunction accounts for approximately one-fourth of surgical errors in the operating room. A serious game was developed to train surgeons in recognizing and responding to equipment failure in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) adequately. This study determined the baseline performance of surgeons, surgical residents, surgical novices, and MIS equipment technicians in solving MIS equipment failure.

The serious game included 37 problem scenarios on the subjects lighting and imaging, insufflation and gas transport, electrosurgery, and pathophysiological disturbances. The scenarios were validated by laparoscopic surgeons and MIS equipment specialists. Forty-nine licensed surgeons, surgical residents, medical students, and MIS equipment specialists played four sessions on the serious game at a surgical convention. Scores on different outcome parameters were compared between groups of a different MIS experience.

Laparoscopic equipment specialists solved significantly more MIS equipment-related problems than surgical novices, intermediates, and experts (68.9 vs. 51.0 %, 51.4, and 45.0 %, respectively, p = 0.01). Laparoscopic equipment specialists required significantly fewer steps to solve a problem accurately (median of 1.0 vs. 2.0 for the other groups). Most notably, experienced surgeons were unable to outperform novice and intermediate groups. Experienced surgeons took less time to solve the problems, but made more mistakes in doing so.

Experienced surgeons did not outperform inexperienced surgeons in dealing with laparoscopic equipment failure. These results are worrying and need to be addressed by the surgical community.