Impact of laparoscopic experience on virtual robotic simulator dexterity

BACKGROUND: Different skills are required for robotic surgery and laparoscopic surgery. We hypothesized that the laparoscopic experience would not affect the performance with the da Vinci(®) system. A virtual robotic simulator was used to estimate the operator's robotic dexterity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The performance of 11 surgical fellows with laparoscopic experience and 14 medical students were compared using the dV-trainer(®). Each subject completed three virtual endo-wrist modules (“Pick and Place,” “Peg Board,“ and “Match Board”). Performance was recorded using a built-in scoring algorithm. RESULTS: In the Peg Board module, the performance of surgical fellows was better in terms of the number of instrument collisions and number of drops (P < 0.05). However, no significant differences were found in the percentage scores of the three endo-wrist modules between the groups. CONCLUSION: Robotic dexterity was not significantly affected by laparoscopic experience in this study. Laparoscopic experience is not an important factor for learning robotic skills.