The Development of a Virtual Reality Training Curriculum for Colonoscopy

Abstract

A comprehensive, stratified, benchmarked, whole-procedure curriculum has been developed for a modern high-fidelity VR colonoscopy simulator.

Training and competence assessment in GI endoscopy: a systematic review

“…That is, construct validity was consistently reported as good for performance measures related to procedural times in all published studies. Three validation studies reported on the Olympus Endo TS-1 VR computer simulator for colonoscopy 13 16 28. Face validity was rated as good by two studies and all three demonstrated good construct validity on all studied procedures.…”

A Virtual Reality Training Curriculum for Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery

“…3 Such modules have been implemented in vascular surgery and endoscopy. Willaert et al 34 demonstrated that training on a carotid stenting module was as effective as training on a full procedure, whereas Sugden et al 13 developed a VR curriculum in colonoscopy, progressing from basic modules (intubating the sigmoid and descending colon) to advanced modules (intubating the splenic flexure), and then to the full procedure (a full colonoscopy). The same kind of progression was designed in our curriculum-training in basic laparoscopic skills (cholecystectomy), then advanced procedural tasks (medial dissection, lateral dissection, and anastomosis), and finally full LSC.…”

“…Each step of the curriculum was completed when level of proficiency was achieved on 2 consecutive sessions, with a maximum of 2 sessions per day performed at least 1 hour apart, according to previously published curricula. [11][12][13] As this training curriculum involved advanced laparoscopic skills, its first step required to achieve proficiency in basic laparoscopic skills, during a cholecystectomy. Indeed, cholecystectomy is a standard training procedure for laparoscopic skills and it is a prerequisite of general surgery training in the United States.…”

“…Such curricula were implemented in basic laparoscopic surgery and endoscopy. [11][12][13] A further step in education would be to design CBC for advanced training in laparoscopic abdominal surgery (ATLAS). 14 Such training may reduce learning curves and improve patients' safety in the OR.…”

Toward technology-supported surgical training: the potential of virtual simulators in laparoscopic surgery

“…Indeed, the distributed training has demonstrated higher impact on STS in VR (17). Such curricular approach has also been implemented in endoscopy (13) and may as well be used in the future for advanced laparoscopic surgery. Finally, retention of STS has been shown up to 7 months after training to proficiency on VR simulators (18).…”