CogInfoCom-Driven Surgical Skill Training and Assessment

The systematic assessment and development of human learning capabilities is one of the biggest challenges in applied sciences. It can be observed within the medical domain how evidence-based paradigms are gradually gaining space. In this chapter, the development process of a laparoscopic box trainer is introduced. A simulator including a phantom for prostatectomy is described, which feeds into medical staff training and skill assessment. An overview of laparoscopic surgical simulators is provided. Based on the state of the art and our previous experience, a clear need was formulated to develop a partially physical, partially computer-integrated simulator. To gain a better understanding of the cognitive load and physical stress, force measurement was used in the test environment. The force and time data were used to evaluate the performance of the participant. A new assessment method was described, which can be used to point out the weak aspects of surgical technique, and the participants can do this on their own. Computer-integrated assistive technologies for surgical education are believed to rapidly become the gold standard on a global scale.