Development of a Burn Escharotomy Assessment Tool: A Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Surgical Simulation
• Trauma Surgery

Background:

• Escharotomies are critical, high-risk procedures for severe burn injuries.
• Current training lacks effective, hands-on biomimetic models for escharotomy practice.
• Need for improved surgical education in infrequent, emergent procedures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an affordable biomimetic trainer for escharotomy.
• To pilot a validation study assessing the trainer's effectiveness.
• To evaluate the trainer's ability to differentiate surgeon experience levels.

Main Methods:

• Collaboration between surgeons, special effect artists, and anatomists to create the trainer.
• Inclusion of discrete failure points: nerve injury, fasciotomy, and pulse check.
• Pilot study involving timed procedures and pre/post-surveys on a biomimetic model.
• Comparison of performance between experienced and inexperienced surgeons.

Main Results:

• The trainer cost less than $35 per participant.
• Inexperienced surgeons showed significantly more procedural violations than experienced surgeons (P = .036).
• 100% participant agreement on the model's realistic appearance and training value (face validity).

Conclusions:

• An affordable, effective biomimetic escharotomy trainer has been developed.
• The trainer successfully discriminated between surgeon experience levels in a pilot study.
• Further research is needed to enhance reliability and assessment metrics for surgical simulation.