The Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) together with Simbionix™ have developed the first ever virtual reality system that can objectively assess surgical endoscopic skills.
Cleveland, OH: Traditionally, the only way to assess technical skills in the medical field has been through unstructured, subjective observation.
Therefore, the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) Fundamentals of Endoscopic SurgeryTM (FESTM) program has taken a giant step toward more reliable and valid measures of surgical performance to improve patient safety.
As part of this initiative, SAGES together with Simbionix™, a leader in surgical simulation, have developed the first ever virtual reality system that can objectively assess surgical endoscopic skills.
The FES program is a comprehensive educational module and assessment tool designed to teach and test the fundamental knowledge, clinical judgment and technical skills required in the performance of basic gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopic surgery (endoscopy).
FES intends to set a validated benchmark of understanding and necessary skills in basic endoscopy in order to improve the quality of patient care.
The Simbionix GI Mentor™ is a top–of-the-line endoscopic medical simulator for the training of gastrointestinal upper and lower endoscopic procedures.
The simulator provides multiple training opportunities with true-to-life patient cases offering realistic scenarios of clinical situations using customized actual tools.
The GI Mentor provides a comprehensive environment for practicing clinical procedures in a safe and realistic manner.
The FES test measures cognitive knowledge and judgment, and uses the GI Mentor virtual reality platform to evaluate fundamental technical skills.
The educational module consists of a web-based multimedia presentation of didactic content.
Those who successfully complete both the educational and assessment components will have demonstrated the basic knowledge, judgment and technical skills fundamental to the performance of endoscopic surgery.
After long development and validation of the module using the Simbionix GI Mentor, the SAGES FES exams will be officially up and running in Spring 2013. Medical professionals taking this test will be objectively assessed, with tests sites being restricted to general surgery residency programs in the US and Canada.
Among the first test center sites are University Hospitals- Case Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio; The Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas; and McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec.
To experience the realistic virtual reality hands-on training available on the GI Mentor, visit Simbionix booth #609 at IMSH, January 27-29 in Orlando, FL.
SAGES is a not-for-profit professional membership organization which represents a worldwide community of surgeons that bring minimal access surgery, endoscopy and emerging techniques to patients in every country.
Representing over 6,000 surgeons and allied health professionals, their mission is to provide leadership in surgery, particularly gastrointestinal and endoscopic surgery, in order to optimize patient care through education, research and innovation.