Analysis of hand motion differentiates expert and novice surgeons

Abstract Background The number of operations performed by a surgeon may be an indicator of surgical skill. The hand motions made by a surgeon also reflect skill and level of expertise. We hypothesized that the hand motions of expert and novice surgeons differ significantly, regardless of whether they are familiar with specific tasks during an operation. Methods This study compared 11 expert surgeons, each of whom had performed >100 laparoscopic procedures, and 27 young surgeons, each of whom had performed Results Detrended fluctuation analysis showed that the exponent in the function describing the initial scaling exponent ( α 1 ) differed significantly for experts and novices, being close to 1.0 and 1.5, respectively ( P P Conclusions Objective evaluation of hand motion during a simulated laparoscopic procedure showed a significant difference between experts and novices.