Reinforcing the effect of microsurgery practice during robotic suturing skill acquisition.

[BACKGROUND] This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of microsurgery practice during an interval in robotic surgical training.

[METHODS] Two participant groups with 30 trainees each practiced Thread the Rings 1 on a dV-Trainer. There were four 2-h training sessions, with a 72-h interval between each session. Group A received no additional training during the study period. During every interval, Group B practiced a similar 2-h ring penetration exercise using a microscope three times (once every 24 h).

[RESULTS] The 72-h delay between two sessions for Group A caused the forgetting effect. For Group B, additional microscope-based training aided memory retention. After the training session, Group B presented a significantly higher score than Group A in Thread the Ring 1 learning curves.

[CONCLUSIONS] Adding microsurgical skill training into the basic robotic-surgery training curriculum could be helpful because additional trainings with a binocular microscope could improve robotic surgical skill levels.