Assessment of laparoscopic skills before and after simulation training with a canine abdominal model.

OBJECTIVE-To determine whether scores for basic laparoscopic skills were significantly associated with extent of laparoscopic experience and compare basic laparoscopic skill scores obtained before and after 2 laparoscopic training sessions incorporating a canine abdominal model. DESIGN-Evaluation study. SAMPLE POPULATION-8 experienced and 25 novice individuals. PROCEDURES-Novice participants were randomly assigned to control (n = 10) and training (15) groups. Individuals in the experienced and novice training groups were required to undergo 2 training sessions with a canine abdominal model. Basic laparoscopic skills were assessed twice on the basis of 3 tasks included in the McGill Inanimate Simulator for Training and Evaluation of Laparoscopic Skills (MISTELS). RESULTS-For the novice training group, laparoscopic skills scores were significantly higher after training than before, but for individuals in the novice control group, scores did not differ significantly between the first and second assessments. The increase in score for the novice training group was significantly higher than increases for the experienced group and for the novice control group, but the increase in score for the experienced group was not significantly different from the increase in score for the novice control group. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE-Results suggested that basic laparoscopic skills scores obtained with the MISTELS were associated with extent of laparoscopic experience and that training with a canine abdominal model could increase skills scores for individuals without previous laparoscopic experience.