Establishment of a Novel Method of Objective Quantification of Surgical Skills in Colorectal Laparoscopic Surgery

Although many tools for laparoscopic surgical skill assessment have been reported, they frequently have some drawbacks such as being subjective and requiring high-cost devices. We aimed to develop a low-cost model that can objectively and easily assess the skills for the judgment of grasping and dissecting points during laparoscopic surgery.

Twelve colorectal surgeons (four expert, four trained, and four novice surgeons) participated in the study. Ten representative images of laparoscopic sigmoid colectomy were selected, and each participant marked the point where to grasp and dissect in each image. Differences in the distribution of the grasping and dissection points among the participants were assessed.

Compared with the grasping points, the dispersity of the dissection points was smaller, especially in their vertical distribution. At both the grasping and dissection points, the dots of the novice surgeons showed a wider dispersion than those of the other two groups; however, the distribution of the dots showed no apparent difference between the expert and trained groups. Almost all parameters in the novice group showed significant differences from the average points of the experts.

We established a novel, minimally costly, and time-consuming method for quantifying the surgical ability of novice surgeons.