Residents can do it! A hands-on training program in laparoscopic liver surgery for general surgery residents

Introduction:Laparoscopic liver resections (LLR) constitute an area of surgery that has been kept away from residents in their hands-on training. The aim of our study is to assess the feasibility and the value of a didactic "step-by-step" program for LLR performed by residents using the swine training model Methods:From May 2018 to November 2019, three hands-on workshops were held. The protocol involved the performance of cholecystectomy, liver mobilization, minor and major hepatectomies. The participants' performance results in terms of operative time, blood loss, conversion, trainers' intervention and intraoperative mortality, were recorded. The first workshop was comprised of 30 residents who previously participated in laparoscopic surgery workshops. In the second workshop, after six residents dropped out due to residency completion, the findings for the remaining 24 residents were compared to those for 24 junior attending surgeons who didn't follow the protocol and had not performed LLR previously, and to another 24 residents in a third workshop, who had not taken the training program before but followed the protocolResults:All residents fully completed the surgical procedures. Trained residents achieved better operative times and less blood loss compared to senior surgeons (p<0.017), however, the remaining parameters were comparable. When compared to non-trained residents, those who underwent training achieved significantly better results only in operative times (p<0.001)Conclusion:A continuous LLR "step-by-step" training program on swine for residents is feasible and the "step-by-step" protocol is a valuable tool for a proper surgical education.