Training to maintain surgical skills during periods of robotic surgery inactivity

Background: The study was performed to establish a level of practice needed for newly-trained residents to maintain robotic surgical skills during periods of robotic inactivity. Methods: Ten surgical residents were trained to a standardized level of robotic surgery proficiency with inanimate models. At the end of two, four and six weeks, the residents practiced with the models for a total of one hour. Each resident performed a timed tissue closure task immediately after reaching the proficiency standards and twice in succession at eight weeks. Time to completion was compared between the three trials with a repeated measures ANOVA and a post-hoc test. Results: Average time to complete the tissue closure task decreased by more than 25% over the period between reaching the proficiency standards and the trials at eight weeks, with the difference significant (P<0.004). Conclusions: Biweekly practice for one hour was sufficient to maintain robotic surgical skills.