Evaluation of laparoscopic skills in medical students

To evaluate the laparoscopic skills of medical students and identify personal characteristics in terms of greater easiness in performing laparoscopic surgical procedures.

This study included medical students in the 6th semester of a Medical School in Brazil who answered 10 questions concerning their habits and characteristics. A laparoscopic platform and an abdominal synthetic model were used to assess surgical skills comprising the three following surgical steps: to pass the needle through the trocar and to place it in the laparoscopic needle holder, to perform a laparoscopic simple stitch in synthetic liver parenchyma and, to perform a laparoscopic surgical knot. The duration of the activity was limited to four minutes and the procedure was monitored by a laparoscopic surgeon.

The study included 50 students. Of these, 18% completed the three surgical stages. Steps 1 and 2 were completed by 94% and 88% of students, respectively. No statistically significant variables were found when characteristics of the groups with and without success in the three stages were compared. The group that finished the activity had a faster time completing step 2 than the group that failed (mean time of 115.3 seconds against 157.8 seconds, p=0.03).

The minority of students could complete effectively all three surgical steps. No personal traits related to greater surgical skill were identified.