Evaluating a Virtual Reality Motor-Skills Simulator

Evaluation was performed on a prototype low-cost virtual-reality motor-skills simulator (VRMSS) created at the Telehealth Research Institute, John A. Burns School of Medicine, in conjunction with the National Biocomputation Center, Stanford University. The VRMSS is specifically designed to teach baseline fine-motor skills used in surgery that are based on a matrix of elemental technical skills that comprise the tenets of surgical technique. Fifty-seven participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (VRMSS, box trainer or no training). After training each group was evaluated using the LapSim from Surgical Sciences. The VRMSS and box trainer were similar in performance, but significantly better than the no training control group. The VRMSS has significant advantages over the box trainer, in that the VRMSS can provide scoring on several parameters of the task without the need of an instructor and the VRMSS is approximately 1/16(th) the cost of the Lapsim.