Published in:
01-03-2016
Validity evidence for a new portable, lower-cost platform for the fundamentals of endoscopic surgery skills test
Published in: Surgical Endoscopy | Issue 3/2016
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Background
The fundamentals of endoscopic surgery (FES) examination measures the knowledge and skills required to perform safe flexible endoscopy. A potential limitation of the FES™ skills test is the size and cost of the simulator on which it was developed (GI Mentor™ II virtual reality endoscopy simulator; Simbionix LTD, Israel). A more compact and lower-cost alternative (GI Mentor™ Express) was developed to address this issue. The purpose of this study was to obtain evidence for the validity of scores obtained on the Express platform, so that it can be used for testing.
Study design
General surgery residents at various levels of training and practicing endoscopists at five institutions participated. Each completed the five FES tasks on both simulator platforms in random order, with 3–14 days between tests. Scores were calculated using the same standardized computer-generated algorithm and compared using Pearson’s correlation coefficient.
Results
There were 58 participants (mean age 32; 76 % male) with a broad range of endoscopic experience. The mean (95 % confidence interval) FES scores were 72 (67:77) on the GI Mentor™ II and 66 (60:71) on the Express. The correlation between scores on the two platforms was 0.86 (0.77:0.91; p < 0.0001).
Conclusion
There is a high correlation between FES manual skills scores measured on the original platform and the new Express, providing evidence to support the use of the GI Mentor™ Express for FES testing.