Acquisition of endoscopic nasal surgery skills with a lamb’s head model

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the acquisition of surgical skills by otolaryngology residents and established the minimum number of dissections of a lamb’s model to be performed before practicing on human patients. METHODS: Nineteen second-year otolaryngology residents performed ten dissections each, five on each nasal cavity, always practicing the same three surgical procedures on the lamb model. Each student’s training lasted 2-months, and the entire training intervention lasted 4-years, over four generations of residents. All dissections were recorded and were selected at random for examination by two independent otolaryngology surgeons, who were otherwise not involved in the research. Assessment of the 190 dissections used an instrument validated for surgical training of medical residents. RESULTS: To a 1% significance level, statistical analysis revealed increased performance and satisfactory results were observed after the sixth dissection. Furthermore, after the eighth dissection, skill acquisition was relevant and sustained. CONCLUSION: Training in endoscopic nasal surgery on a lamb’s head model improves surgical skills and handling of surgical instruments. Our results showed the relevance of the lamb model for training in otolaryngology surgery, impacting on patient safety. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2.