Features and Benefits
Simulation
As well as excellent tasks, skills and suturing simulation, high fidelity hands-on training of complex complete laparoscopic procedures is a unique benefit of the LAP Mentor, providing a safe environment for trainees to:
- Enhance knowledge of the procedure.
- Practice decision making.
- Improve technical skills and performance.
- Perform critical steps of the procedure.
- Perform errors and practice control of complications.
- Encounter difficult or rare cases, which may otherwise not be encountered during a training period.
- LAP Mentor platforms are available with or without tactile experience when using the surgical tools for enhancing true-to-life feel of tissue resistance during surgery simulation, providing the highest level of hands-on training.
Educational Content
Didactic features and educational aids are developed in collaboration with medical educators. Features include:
- 3D anatomical maps.
- Procedural instructions – textual and interactive.
- Videos of real-life procedures.
- Trocar configurations.
- Interactive simulation of procedure specific surgical instruments and the surgical environment.
Technical Skills Reporting and Assessment
Performance reports provide feedback to both the learner and the educator in order to assess skill level and training success. Metric categories include:
- Time and economy of movements.
- Safety and electrosurgical dissection.
- Procedural errors
- Procedure specific checklist items relating to knowledge of procedure, handling of instruments and many more.
“Does assessment during virtual surgery predict actual intraoperative performance?” (Okrainec et al, Association for Surgical Education Annual Meeting, 2008, Canada). Learn more about the scientific data which supports the use of the LAP Mentor as a training and assessment tool.
Training Course Administration
- Custom-building of training modules for learners of all levels and across disciplines.
- User and group administration for the organization of trainees, courses and workshops.
- Viewing and exporting of performance reports facilitates learning, analysis of training effect, research and future certification.
Evidence of Effective Training
The LAP Mentor is being used in ACS accredited training centers and is integrated into training programs or utilized in independent learning, to provide hands-on practice for a single trainee or a team.
As simulators are becoming a key part of surgical education, the scientific community is developing programs to incorporate the LAP Mentor into structured proficiency-based training curricula and to demonstrate its effectiveness in enabling skills acquisition.
The LAP Mentor Proficiency Based VR Training Curriculum “The results of this study enable the definition of a competency-based training curriculum for laparoscopic surgery. All tasks have been proven to be construct valid, and learning curve analysis proves that novice surgeons improve their performance with repeated practice on the simulator.” (Darzi et al, MMVR Annual Meeting, 2007)
The LAP Mentor Advances Clinical Performance
Skills acquired through VR simulators have been shown to be transferable to the operating room. The Simbionix LAP Mentor is the only laparoscopic virtual reality training simulator that enables training on complete laparoscopic procedures.
“Training on the LAP Mentor procedural simulation is superior to training on basic VR simulators and has been shown to improve performance in the operating room.” (Reznick et al Surgical Education Annual Meeting, 2009)
Learn more about the LAP Mentor validations
