Does Robotic Surgical Simulator Performance Correlate With Surgical Skill?

Objective To assess the relationship between robotic surgical simulation performance and the real-life surgical skill of attending surgeons. We hypothesized that simulation performance would not correlate with real-life robotic surgical skill in attending surgeons. Design In 2013, Birkmeyer et al. demonstrated an association between laparoscopic surgical performance as determined by expert review of video clips and surgical outcomes. Using that model of expert review, we studied the relationship between robotic simulator performance and real-life surgical skill. Ten attending robotic surgeons performed 4 tasks on the da Vinci Skills Simulator (Camera Targeting 1, Ring Walk 3, Suture Sponge 3, and Energy Dissection 3). Two video clips of a robotic-assisted operation were then recorded for each surgeon. Three expert robotic surgeons reviewed the recordings and rated surgical technique using the Global Evaluative Assessment of Robotic Skills. Setting University of Virginia; Charlottesville, VA; tertiary hospital Participants All attending surgeons who perform robotic-assisted surgery at our institution were enrolled and completed the study. Results The surgeons had a median of 7.25 years of robotic surgical experience with a median of 91 cases (ranging: 20-346 cases) in the last 4 years. Median scores for each simulator task were 87.5%, 39.0%, 77.5%, and 81.5%. Using Pearson’s correlation, scores for each of the individual tasks correlated poorly with expert review of intraoperative performance. There was also no correlation ( r = −0.0304) between overall simulation score (mean: 70.7 ± 9.6%) and expert video ratings (mean: 3.66 ± 0.32 points). Conclusions There was no correlation between attending surgeons’ simulator performance and expert ratings of intraoperative videos based on the Global Evaluative Assessment of Robotic Skills scale. Although novice surgeons may put considerable effort into training on robotic simulators, performance on a simulator may not correlate with attending robotic surgical performance. Development of simulation exercises that guide novice surgeons toward expert performance is needed.