Simulation based surgical education programs and hand performance

Abstract

The performance of the left- and right-hands of a person may be different from each other. In general, people use one hand with a superior performance compared to the other hand where that hand is preferred for performing daily activities. It is critical to understand their preference for right or left hand use, especially in cases where the skills should be improved to use both hands precisely in activities required special abilities such as endoscopic surgical operations. A better understanding of these cases will improve the quality of existing surgical education programs, and make a major contribution specifically in designing, improving and managing of simulation-based instructional technologies. In this study, the right- and left-hand preferences (handedness) of people are analyzed from the literature and a simulation-based experimental study is conducted in order to examine the performance differences of the participants while using their right and left hands. The results of this study aimed to guide the curriculum designers and instructional system developers for better designing and developing simulation-based surgical education programs.