The Impact of Homemade Laparoscopic Box Trainers on Medical Student Surgical Skills: A Randomized Control Pilot Study.

While instructional videos are commonly used in surgical education, there is a paucity of data on home laparoscopic box trainers. This pilot study evaluated impacts of augmenting instructional videos with these devices. This was a randomized controlled pilot study evaluating laparoscopic surgical performance on the LapSim virtual surgical simulator before and after a 2 week curriculum of instructional videos alone (n = 8, 47.1%) vs videos plus a home laparoscopic box trainer (n = 9, 52.9%). The LapSim recorded mistake number, time, and instrument path length to complete each task. Participants completed surveys about their perceptions of surgery before and after the course. Preclinical medical students were recruited. Those with extensive surgical experience or did not complete the course were excluded. For the box trainer group vs the videos alone group: mean change in mistakes was -10.0 (standard deviation [SD]:17.1) vs +.5 (SD:21.59) ( = .28); mean change in time was -433.24 (SD:304.67) seconds vs -366.16 (SD:240.10) seconds ( = .62); mean change in instrument path length was -4.27 (SD:4.38) meters vs -3.19 (SD:4.86) meters ( = .64). The box trainer group ranked "I feel as though surgery comes naturally" 1.58 points higher (95% confidence interval [CI]: .85, 2.32; < .01) and "I am worried about being skilled at surgery" 1.26 points lower (95% CI: 2.29, -.24; = .02) upon completing the study. The videos alone group reported no significant changes in survey responses. Home laparoscopic box trainers can generate confidence and reduce anxiety regarding surgical fields. This study provides a framework for future larger scale works.