Camera navigation and cannulation: validity evidence for new educational tasks to complement the Fundamentals of...

Area of Science:

• Surgical Education
• Medical Simulation
• Skills Assessment

Background:

• Laparoscopic surgery skills are crucial but not fully assessed by current methods.
• Camera navigation and cannulation are identified as key skills needing evaluation.
• The Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) examination lacks assessment for these specific skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate metrics for camera navigation (N) and cannulation (C) tasks.
• To assess the potential educational value of incorporating these new tasks into the FLS program.
• To evaluate the validity evidence for N and C tasks in surgical training.

Main Methods:

• Two raters assessed participants on N and C tasks alongside standard FLS tasks.
• Validity was examined by comparing novice and experienced surgical residents.
• Regression analysis was used to determine the predictive value of task scores for training level.

Main Results:

• High inter-rater reliability (0.99) was achieved for both N and C tasks.
• Experienced participants significantly outperformed novices on both N (p < 0.01) and C (p < 0.01) tasks.
• Adding N and C tasks to FLS improved prediction of training level by 2.2% (R² = 0.526).

Conclusions:

• Preliminary validity evidence supports the metrics for N and C tasks.
• The addition of these tasks to the FLS manual skills assessment has a marginal impact on predicting a trainee's level.
• Most participants found the new tasks valuable and representative of real-world surgical challenges.