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Enhancement of Medical Student Suturing Technique Harnessing Virtual Reality Technology
Stephanie Rothberg
*1, Eric Bao
2, Lance Levine
2, Averill Clapp
2, Brian Pinard
1, Nicholas Bastidas
21Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine, Sands Point, NY; 2Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Northwell Health, New Hyde Park, NY
Introduction Virtual reality (VR) immerses the user into a 3-dimensional lens of a video. Studies have determined VR further enhances the learning of surgical residents compared to 2D videos. This study seeks to determine the benefit VR may confer over 2D in teaching medical students to suture while characterizing student perceptions.
Methods All preclinical students at a single medical school were invited to participate. Ten MS1s and 12 MS2s were randomly selected and stratified into two cohorts - VR and 2D. Each student had an individual session to watch the instructional videos and perform the sutures on a cadaver. Students watched the following videos: Introduction to Surgical Tools, Knot Tying (KT), Simple Interrupted (SI), Baseball (BB), and Subcuticular. Performance was blindly assessed by 2 graders using rubrics with a procedural checklist and global rating scale. The average grade for each student was utilized for statistical analysis. One tailed Mann-Whitney U Tests and one tailed T-tests were performed.
Results Overall global rating scale was significantly better in the VR cohort (p=0.044). When stratified by skill type, the VR cohort only scored significantly higher for subcuticular (p=0.044). Although not significant, the VR cohort scored higher for the remaining skill sets (KT VR=3.27 vs 2D=2.90, SI VR=3.23 vs. 2D=3.00, BB VR=3.18 vs. 2D=2.73). Similarly, the VR cohort had a significantly higher score for the subcuticular procedural performance (p=0.037), with non-significantly higher scores for the remaining skills (KT VR=5.23 vs 2D=5.00, SI VR=13.59 vs. 2D=13.27, BB VR=14.41 vs. 2D=13.73). Student confidence significantly increased in both cohorts (VR p=0.000, 2D p=0.001). Both MS2 cohorts had a significant increase in confidence (VR MS2 p=0.000, 2D MS2 p=0.004), while this effect was only seen for the MS1 VR cohort (VR MS1 p=0.000, 2D MS1 p=0.064).
Conclusion VR instruction significantly improves suturing performance amongst medical students compared to 2D, and both modalities significantly improve student confidence.
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