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Robotic surgery training during general surgery residency: a survey comparing attitudes towards a robotic training curriculum within general surgery, urology, and OBGYN residents and attendings

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Abstract

General surgery residents are increasingly exposed to robotic surgery during their training. However, there is no standardized robotic educational curriculum across United States residency programs. Prior to implementing a robotic surgery curriculum, we surveyed our residents and attendings to ascertain their attitude towards robotic surgery training in residency. An anonymous survey was distributed to all general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology (OBGYN), and urology residents, and their respective attending staff at our institution. Responses were compared between residents, attendings, and specialty. Twenty-six (72% response rate) general surgery residents and 18 (47%) subspecialty residents (OBGYN and urology) responded to the survey. Among attendings, 21 general surgery (32%) and 18 subspecialty staff (27%) responded. The majority of general surgery residents and attendings agreed that a robotic surgery curriculum should be implemented in the general surgery residency program (100 vs 86%, p = 0.04). Subspecialty residents also believed a formal curriculum should be implemented within their respective programs (100%). There was no statistically significant difference between general surgery and subspecialty resident responses. The majority of general surgery and subspecialty attendings responded that they would want a robotic surgery curriculum if they were currently residents (76 vs 94%, p = 0.12). The majority of general surgery residents and attendings at our institution believe a robotic surgery curriculum should be offered during residency. This attitude is similar to those of the subspecialty residents and attendings. A surgical education initiative should be developed to create a standardized training program to assure teaching of basic technical skills in robotic surgery before trainees enter clinical practice.

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Funding

Rory Carroll and Garett Steers are funded by NIH grant T32 CA148062.

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Author notes

  1. Rory Carroll and Paolo Goffredo equally contributed to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UIHC Department of Surgery, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, 200 Hawkins Dr., Iowa City, IA, 52246, USA

    Rory Carroll, Paolo Goffredo, Garett Steers, Ibrahim Cetindag, Ryan Lehmann, Jennifer Hrabe, Imran Hassan & Julia Shelton

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  1. Rory Carroll
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  2. Paolo Goffredo
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  3. Garett Steers
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  4. Ibrahim Cetindag
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  5. Ryan Lehmann
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  6. Jennifer Hrabe
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  7. Imran Hassan
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  8. Julia Shelton
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by RC and PG. The first draft of the manuscript was written by RC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rory Carroll.

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This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

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Carroll, R., Goffredo, P., Steers, G. et al. Robotic surgery training during general surgery residency: a survey comparing attitudes towards a robotic training curriculum within general surgery, urology, and OBGYN residents and attendings. J Robotic Surg 16, 1105–1110 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11701-021-01346-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11701-021-01346-w

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