Distractions and surgical proficiency: an educational perspective

Background

Surgery training requires residents to focus on tasks while minimizing the effect of distractions. There is a need to develop training methodologies that can enable surgical residents to hone this ability.

Methods

Fourteen surgical residents were divided into 2 groups. They were trained to perform simulated tasks in a noiseless environment and subsequently performed these tasks in a distractive one. In a follow-up experiment, an experimental group was trained in noisy and distractive conditions and was compared with a control group trained in noiseless conditions.

Results

Residents who trained in noiseless environments possessed decreased surgical proficiency when performing the identical tasks in realistic environments (P < .05). Pretraining in a noisy environment improves surgical proficiency.

Conclusions

Noise and distractions can significantly impede performance of surgical residents, but this effect can be nullified by introduction of noise and distractions in the training environment.