• Ben Roitberg, Pat Banerjee, Cristian Luciano, Martin Matulyauskas, Silvio Rizzi, Patrick Kania, and Jaime Gasco.
• *University of Chicago Section of Neurosurgery, Chicago, Illinois; ‡University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Chicago, Illinois; §ImmersiveTouch Inc, Westmont, Illinois; ¶University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Department of Neurosurgery, Galveston, Texas.
• Neurosurgery. 2013 Oct 1; 73 Suppl 1: 116-21.

BackgroundManual skill is important for surgeons, but current methods to evaluate sensory-motor skills in applicants to a surgical residency are limited.ObjectiveTo develop a method of testing sensory-motor skill using objective and reproducible virtual reality simulation.MethodsWe designed a set of tests on a 3-dimensional surgical simulator with head and arm tracking, colocalization, and haptic feedback: (1) "trajectory planning in a simulated vertebra," ie, 3-dimensional memory and orientation; "hemostasis in the brain," ie, motor planning, sequence, timing, and precision; and "choose the softest object," ie, haptic perception. We also derived a weighted combined score for all tasks.ResultsOf the 55 consecutive applicants to a neurosurgery residency approached, 46 performed at least 1 task, and 36 performed all tasks. For the trajectory planning task, the distance from target ranged from 3 to 30 mm, with 25 of 36 in the 6- to 18-mm range. In the motor planning test, the duration between cauterization attempts ranged between 5 and 22.5 seconds, peaking at 10 to 12.5 seconds in 15 of 36 participants. In the haptic perception test, linear regression demonstrated increased variability in performance with increasing difficulty of task (R = 0.6281). In all tests, performance followed a roughly bell-shaped curve. The combined weighted score of all tests demonstrated a better bell curve distribution, with scores ranging from 0.275 to 0.71 (mean, 0.47; median, 0.4775; SD, 0.1174).ConclusionOur study represents a first step in the direction of an objective, standard, computer-scored test of motor and haptic ability.

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