A structured curriculum for the acquisition of basic surgical endoscopic skills for surgical residents and quantification of skills improvement

Introduction: New strategies and methods are needed to ensure that new generations can train and acquire surgical skills in a safe environment. Materials and methods: From January 2020 to October 2020, we performed a single centre, prospective observational cohort study. 19 participants (15 students, 4 residents) enrolled and 16 participants (13 students, 3 residents) successfully completed the curriculum. We performed a quantitative data analysis to evaluate its effectiveness in gaining and improving basic surgical endoscopic skills. Results: The time for single knot tying pre-, mid-, and post-training was reduced significantly, the average time (sec) decreased by 79.5 % (p < 0.001), the total linear distance (cm) by 74.5 % (p < 0.001) and the total angular distance (rad) by 71.7 % (p < 0.001). The average acceleration (mm/s(2)) increased by 20 % (p = 0.041). Additionally, the average speed increased by 23.5 % (p < 0.001), while motion smoothness (m/s(3)) increased by 20.4 % (p = 0.02). Conclusion: The obtained performance scores showed a significant increase in participants improving their basic surgical performance skills on the endoscopic simulator. This curriculum can be easily implemented in any surgical specialty as part of the residency training curriculum before first exposure in the operation room. All 16 participants recommended the implementation of such simulator training in their surgical training curriculum.