Instant replay: Evaluation of instant video feedback in surgical novices for a laparoscopic gallbladder dissection

Background

Athletes often use video to improve their technique. We hypothesized that surgical novices given feedback using video-replay would outperform surgical novices given verbal feedback in the performance of a laparoscopic task.

Methods

Our study used a prospective, randomized control design. The surgical task involved the laparoscopic dissection of a pig gallbladder. Our participants performed a dissection, pre- and post-traditional or video feedback. Each recording was independently scored by two staff surgeons using the previously validated rating tools.

Results

There was no significant difference between video feedback or traditional feedback groups in their mean overall or task specific scores. Both traditional and video-feedback groups had a trend towards improved performance post-feedback.

Conclusions

No significant difference in performance by both our global assessment metrics or task-specific metrics was observed. Video feedback requires further study to investigate its impact on surgical training.