Relationships among video gaming proficiency and spatial orientation, laparoscopic, and traditional surgical skills of third-year veterinary students

• Localización: JAVMA: Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, ISSN-e 0003-1488, Vol. 244, Nº. 3, 2014, págs. 357-362
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Objective�To determine the relationships among traditional and laparoscopic surgical skills, spatial analysis skills, and video gaming proficiency of third-year veterinary students.

    Design�Prospective, randomized, controlled study.

    Sample�A convenience sample of 29 third-year veterinary students.

    Procedures�The students had completed basic surgical skills training with inanimate objects but had no experience with soft tissue, orthopedic, or laparoscopic surgery; the spatial analysis test; or the video games that were used in the study. Scores for traditional surgical, laparoscopic, spatial analysis, and video gaming skills were determined, and associations among these were analyzed by means of Spearman's rank order correlation coefficient (rs).

    Results�A significant positive association (rs = 0.40) was detected between summary scores for video game performance and laparoscopic skills, but not between video game performance and traditional surgical skills scores. Spatial analysis scores were positively (rs = 0.30) associated with video game performance scores; however, that result was not significant. Spatial analysis scores were not significantly associated with laparoscopic surgical skills scores. Traditional surgical skills scores were not significantly associated with laparoscopic skills or spatial analysis scores.

    Conclusions and Clinical Relevance�Results of this study indicated video game performance of third-year veterinary students was predictive of laparoscopic but not traditional surgical skills, suggesting that laparoscopic performance may be improved with video gaming experience. Additional studies would be required to identify methods for improvement of traditional surgical skills.

    Because of increasing numbers of students, expanding curricula, and limited time and financial resources, medical educators are compelled to develop innovative teaching methods for surgical skills instruction. Although there is a need for surgical training in veterinary and human medical educational institutions, operating rooms may not be ideal learning environments because of concerns regarding the learning of new skills during procedures for clinical patients, fiscal limitations, time constraints, and the need to reduce errors by inexperienced surgeons because of ethical and litigious concerns.1�4 The numbers of students in veterinary education programs are increasing, and such students subsequently have decreased exposure to clinical cases.5 Because of these factors�combined with increasing ethical concerns regarding the use of research animals for the sole purpose of surgical training and the unsustainability of cadavers owing to problems with availability, storage, and limited usefulness due to decay1�evaluation of alternate methods for surgical skills instruction is warranted.

    Medical simulators, virtual reality simulators, benchtop models, and robotic surgical systems have been evaluated for education in human medical training programs. Although such systems are effective, they can be costly and time-consuming to set up, which has led to interest in the use of video games for surgical skills training. Video games are portable, easy to set up and use, do not necessitate the use of a specialized skills laboratory, can be used in small spaces, and require no consumables. Historically, video games were controlled by use of a standard joystick and buttons. New video game consoles are more advanced in that they have a motion-sensing interface that allows game players to move a controller in 3 dimensions.

    An association between video gaming proficiency and level of performance during laparoscopic surgery has been identified for medical students, residents, and surgeons.2 However, no studies have been conducted regarding the relationship between video gaming proficiency and laparoscopic surgical skills, 3-D spatial orientation skills, or traditional surgical skills for veterinary students, to the authors' knowledge. The objectives of the study reported here were to determine associations among video gaming skills and laparoscopic surgical skills, 3-D spatial orientation skills, and traditional surgical skills of third-year veterinary students. We hypothesized that video gaming performance and 3-D spatial orientation skills would be predictive of laparoscopic surgical skills as assessed by use of trainer boxes but would not be predictive of traditional surgical skills.