Enhancing Technical Skill Acquisition And Reducing Evaluation Bias Through Simulation-Based Vascular Anastomosis...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Skills Training
• Vascular Surgery

Background:

• Simulation-based training is crucial for developing surgical skills.
• Objective evaluation of technical proficiency and potential biases in assessment are critical areas in surgical education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of video replay in simulation-based vascular anastomosis training.
• To evaluate technical skill acquisition, self-assessment versus faculty evaluation alignment, and evaluator bias reduction.

Main Methods:

• 31 general surgery residents underwent a 7-week vascular anastomosis training program with video-recorded pre- and post-tests.
• Performance was evaluated by blinded faculty using modified MOSAT and GRS, alongside resident self-assessments.
• Paired and unpaired t-tests were used for statistical analysis.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements in both self-assessed and faculty-assessed technical scores were observed (p < 0.0001).
• Mean leak volume decreased significantly (p < 0.0001), while completion time showed no significant change.
• Post-training, faculty rated residents higher than self-assessments, and initial gender-based evaluation bias was reduced post-training.

Conclusions:

• Blinded video replay in simulation-based vascular training enhances technical skills.
• Residents tend to underestimate their abilities, highlighting a discrepancy between self and faculty assessments.
• This training modality shows potential for reducing gender-based evaluation bias in surgical training.