Laparoscopy and RoboticsProgram for Laparoscopic Urologic Skills: A Newly Developed and Validated Educational Program
Section snippets
Development of the PLUS
We submitted the original FLS training program to the judgment of 8 Dutch urologists, all from different hospitals, who are considered experts in the field of urologic laparoscopy, having performed >500 laparoscopic procedures and/or taught (inter)national laparoscopy courses. After watching the theoretical modules on CD-ROM and performing the 5 original tasks on the box trainer, the experts expressed their opinions in a questionnaire considering the usefulness of each task for urologic
Results
A total of 50 participants were included in the study: 13 students from the University of Maastricht, 20 urologic residents from 6 different hospitals, and 17 urologists from 10 different hospitals. The mean score for laparoscopic experience was 0 for students, 31 ± 18 for residents, and 439 ± 480 for urologists. Five participants were excluded from the analysis of construct validity, because they did not complete the whole PLUS. One participant was excluded from the analysis of face validity
Comment
The results of the present study have confirmed the face, content, and construct validity of a newly developed educational program, the PLUS, consisting of 5 basic tasks. Three tasks were abstracted from the FLS and 2 tasks were newly developed to fit the requirements of urology training programs.
Conclusions
In the present study we showed evidence for face, content, and construct validity of PLUS training to learn basic laparoscopic urologic skills. The PLUS shows promise as a primary training tool for a step-wise training method in which different aspects of basic and procedural skills are integrated. Additional studies should investigate the next steps for laparoscopic training. Also, additional research is needed to define the standards of acceptable performance that can be used for assessment
Acknowledgment
To the 8 experts from Erasmus Medical Center, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Canisius-Wilhelmina Hospital, Jeroen Bosch Hospital, Scheperhospital, St-Franciscus Gasthuis, St-Jansdal Hospital, and Rijnstate Hospital, who participated in the development of the PLUS trainer; to all the medical students from Maastricht University and the residents in urology and urologists who were willing to participate in this validation study; and to Mereke Gorsira for her editorial assistance, with
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