The innate aptitude’s effect on the surgical task performance: a systematic review

Abstract

Surgery is known to be a craft profession requiring individuals with specific innate aptitude for manipulative skills, and visuospatial and psychomotor abilities. The present-day selection process of surgical trainees does not include aptitude testing for the psychomotor and manual manipulative skills of candidates for required abilities. We aimed to scrutinize the significance of innate aptitudes in surgical practice and impact of training on skills by systematically reviewing their significance on the surgical task performance. A systematic review was performed in compliance with PRISMA guidelines. An initial search was carried out on PubMed/Medline for English language articles published over 20 years from January 2001 to January 2021. Search strategy and terms to be used included ‘aptitude for surgery’, ‘innate aptitude and surgical skills, ‘manipulative abilities and surgery’, and ‘psychomotor skills and surgery’. MERSQI score was applied to assess the quality of quantitatively researched citations. The results of the present searches provided a total of 1142 studies. Twenty-one studies met the inclusion criteria out of which six citations reached high quality and rejected our three null hypothesis. Consequently, the result specified that all medical students cannot reach proficiency in skills necessary for pursuing a career in surgery; moreover, playing video games and/or musical instruments does not promote skills for surgery, and finally, there may be a valid test with predictive value for novices aspiring for a surgical career. MERSQI mean score was 11.07 (SD = 0.98; range 9.25–12.75). The significant findings indicated that medical students with low innate aptitude cannot reach skills necessary for a competent career in surgery. Training does not compensate for pictorial-skill deficiency, and a skill is needed in laparoscopy. Video-gaming and musical instrument playing did not significantly promote aptitude for microsurgery. The space-relation test has predictive value for a good laparoscopic surgical virtual-reality performance. The selection process for candidates suitable for a career in surgery requests performance in a simulated surgical environment.

Robotic versus open resection for colorectal liver metastases in a “referral centre Hub&Spoke learning program”. A multicenter propensity score matching analysis of perioperative outcomes

“…Surgical education has traditionally transferred from experienced surgeons (high volume centers) to trainees (low volume centers and young surgeons) [ [42] , [43] , [44] ]. However, the H&S offers a paradigm change in surgical education: the Hub offers mentorship, ensuring standardization of training, while spoke unites benefit of huge cohort of patients and hands-on clinical experience [ 13 , 45 , 46 ].…”

Assessment of the evolution of psychomotor skills in the robotic surgery simulation process

“…El Boghdady M & Ewalds-Kvist BM (2021), in their systematic review, compare groups that included students with a high level of innate aptitude and another with a low level of innate fitness and concluded that fitness plays a significant role in learning advanced skills, which leads us to believe that this innate aptitude can have been reflected in some of the surgeons in training [40].…”

Visuospatial ability is associated to 2D laparoscopic simulator performance amongst surgical residents

“…On the contrary, others have found improved results with training [ 31 , 32 ], but to date few studies have been conducted [ 32 ]. A recent review suggested that videogaming did not increase the VSA [ 33 ]. A multitude of different VSA tests have been used in previous studies, which could possibly explain conflicting results to date [ 32 ].…”

“…This study did not find manual dexterity to be predictive of laparoscopic performance, though previous studies have shown promising results [ 17 , 39 , 40 ]. Other background factors have also been suggested having an impact on laparoscopic performance, such as sex, playing musical instrument, and previous laparoscopic training [ 18 , 33 ]. Louridas et al found previous laparoscopic experience to be the only background factor predictive of baseline laparoscopic skill [ 18 ].…”