Affiliation:
1. Department of Surgery, Division of Thoracic Surgery, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Abstract
Since 2017, robotic-assisted surgery has significantly grown, enabling surgeons to overcome weaknesses interrelated to traditional laparoscopic surgery. Therefore, the high growth of robotic-assisted surgery has necessitated the development of a curriculum that will support effective learning of this technology. Although different curricula have been developed and validated over the years, researchers have different views on their effectiveness; some of them reveal that some are better than others. This review aims to highlight and discuss numerous curricula that have been developed to teach robotic-assisted surgery. In understanding the creation of curricula that can be used to teach robotic surgery, comprehensive searches of literature materials from PubMed, MEDLINE and Embase were conducted. After the investigation, research articles on robotic surgery curricula published in English from 2014 to 2022 were located and used. Based on the research materials, it was established that creating and implementing a standard curriculum incorporating simulation training, mentorship, didactic lessons, and hands-on practice is one of the best when applied in robotic surgery training. This is because it shows a significant improvement in didactic, cognitive, psychomotor, and communication skills when implemented. Besides, the results indicated that other curriculum programs such as da Vinci® Technology Training Pathway and Fundementals of Robotic Surgery are crucial in creating a curriculum to teach robotic surgery since they influence procedure-specific skills and knowledge, including but not limited to instrumentation, patient selection, system and patient positioning, preoperational operation, procedural steps, port placement, management, and complications. Therefore, this shows that to achieve the most effective training curricula for robotic surgery, it is vital to combine several teaching methods for surgeons to achieve great expertise.