Without the potential for disease or blood borne pathogen contamination
Cadavers remain a principal teaching tool for anatomists and medical educators teaching gross anatomy. Infectious pathogens in cadavers that present particular risks include Mycobacterium tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, the AIDS virus HIV, and prions that cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS)
Valuable from didactical point of view
A cross-sectional study on general surgery residents (postgraduate years 1-5) at Yale University School of Medicine and the University of Toronto via an online questionnaire was conducted. Overall, 67 residents completed the survey. Overall, 95.5% of the participants believed that simulation training improved their laparoscopic skills. Most respondents (92.5%) perceived that skills learned during…
Inanimate model appears to be the favorite of medical experts
Participants rankings of simulation models analyzed by postgraduate year of training
High adherence to real anatomy
An on-line survey was developed. An email invitation to participate was sent to 600 members of the Canadian Orthopedic Association (it was not known if all of these surgeons performed arthroscopic surgery). A total of 111 orthopedic surgeons responded to the survey. These respondents performed an average of 185.3 procedures per year (SD = 132.4) and had on average 13.5 years of experience doing…
Greater skill improvement with simulators vs. cadavers
Seventeen subjects applied to take part in the study. All subjects met the inclusion criteria, and none were excluded. Randomization resulted in 8 participants assigned to the VR group and 9 tonone were excluded. Randomization resulted in 8 participants assigned to the VR group and 9 to the BT group. Both simulators delivered improvements in arthroscopic skills. BT training led to skills that…
Cost effective- compared to other simulators and cadaver labs
The disadvantages [of cadaver labs, ndr] are the costs, difficulty in procurement of cadavers, limits on repeated use of a cadaver, and the possibility of disease transmission.
Physical models leads to faster and accurate arthroscopy
A total of 23 subjects (17 novices and 6 experts) were recruited to participate in the study. The results show that the expert group completed the tasks more quickly than the novices, and that the novices completed the tasks more quickly after practice with the simulator.
Objective evaluation of surgeon skills on specific tasks
A total of 23 subjects (17 novices and 6 experts) were recruited to participate in the study. The results from the task completion time and path length support construct validity for the simulator in terms of distinguishing between novices and experts and achieving the goal of helping novices improve through relevant practice