Utilizing Gaze Training to Enhance Laparoscopic Skills Training

NCT ID: NCT03413943

Last Updated: 2021-01-12

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 8 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2018-01-01
• Study Completion Date: 2020-03-13

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to test the influences of gaze training (GT) on the acquisition of laparoscopic surgical skills. For this purpose, the investigator will compare variants of GT in the second of 2 experiments. These questions will be evaluated using the validated Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) module 1, with the overall goal of developing a surgical training curriculum that achieves expert level skill in an expedited timeframe. This research provides a novel approach to general surgery training that has the potential to reduce the amount of time and repetitions required to achieve expert laparoscopic skills.

Detailed Description

Developing expert performance requires assessment of the thought processes underlying performance and continued refinement of skills in order to obtain automaticity and intuition. Therefore, developing expert surgical skill is a process likely to take longer than the length of residency, thereby diminishing the quality of care delivered to patients.

The proposed study will implement novel neuroscience technique of gaze training to determine if it has the capacity to accelerate technical surgical skill learning in order to achieve competency and expertise in an earlier timeframe. Studies of skill performance have demonstrated that eye movement patterns can be optimized to improve subsequent motor movements. Therefore, gaze training encourages novices to adopt the more efficient gaze patterns of experts while performing a specific task such as laparoscopic surgery. This technique has been applied in the training of surgical residents in a limited capacity making this project an innovative approach to enhance skill development.

Experiment 2: Determine if gaze training can accelerate the learning of laparoscopic skills.

In this experiment the investigators will first establish expert gaze patterns in the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery modules 1 and 5 by testing a total of 9 participants, including attending surgeons, senior residents, and novices trained to proficiency. The investigators will then compare behavioral learning curves from non-expert participants without gaze training against those trained using both explicit (by reviewing the expert gaze pattern) and implicit gaze (by using a visual mask during the training, leading the participant to follow the expert gaze) derived from the expert gaze patterns. This will be tested in 3 groups of 20 participants, who train for 40-minutes in each of 6 sessions that occur within 3 weeks.

The investigators hypothesize that both explicit and implicit gaze training will lead to faster skill acquisition, with implicit greater than explicit and measured by trials required to gain proficient module completion scores, relative to the group of participants who practice without any gaze training.

Conditions

Healthy Volunteers

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: OTHER
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

explicit gaze training

This is an arm of the second phase of the study utilizing gaze training in two different teaching techniques (explicit vs implicit).

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

gaze training

Intervention Type: OTHER

Gaze training will consist of gaze tracking and then review of performance or the use of an implicit map to train an expert gaze pattern.

implicit gaze training

This is an arm of the second phase of the study utilizing gaze training in two different teaching techniques (explicit vs implicit).

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

gaze training

Intervention Type: OTHER

Gaze training will consist of gaze tracking and then review of performance or the use of an implicit map to train an expert gaze pattern.

sham gaze training

This is an arm of the second phase of the study utilizing gaze training in two different teaching techniques (explicit vs implicit).

Group Type: SHAM_COMPARATOR

gaze training

Intervention Type: OTHER

Gaze training will consist of gaze tracking and then review of performance or the use of an implicit map to train an expert gaze pattern.

Interventions

gaze training

Gaze training will consist of gaze tracking and then review of performance or the use of an implicit map to train an expert gaze pattern.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Other Intervention Names

Argus Science

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Age >18 years
• Healthy male and female
• Willing and able to provide informed consent
• Able to follow study procedures

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Duke University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Morgan L Cox, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Duke University

Greg Appelbaum, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Duke University

Locations

Duke University Medical Center

Durham, North Carolina, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

Pro00078782_1

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id