Effects of Real Time Biofeedback on Open Surgery Suturing Skills Acquisition

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Skills Training
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Mastering suturing requires extensive practice, as errors can compromise patient safety.
• Simulated training environments are crucial for developing surgical proficiency.
• Real-time biofeedback offers potential for objective performance assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the learning curve of medical students in open suturing using simulated tissue pads.
• To evaluate the impact of different real-time biofeedback modes (visual and haptic) on suturing performance.
• To assess the effectiveness of biofeedback in improving tissue handling skills.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial (RTC) involving 27 medical students with no prior knot-tying experience.
• Three groups: one control and two intervention groups (visual and haptic biofeedback).
• Training included pre-training, 8 biofeedback sessions, post-training, and follow-up sessions, with force-related metrics analyzed.

Main Results:

• All groups demonstrated improvement in tissue handling.
• Intervention groups (visual and haptic feedback) showed significantly better performance than the control group.
• While learning rates were similar, intervention groups achieved lower asymptotes, indicating higher proficiency.

Conclusions:

• Real-time biofeedback significantly enhances beginners' tissue handling abilities in open suturing.
• Visual and haptic feedback modalities contribute to developing greater proficiency in surgical techniques.
• Biofeedback is a valuable tool for accelerating the learning curve in surgical simulation.