Medical students' attitude toward robotic surgery: time to revise medical school curricula?

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate medical students' perception of, knowledge in, and perspectives toward Rrobotic-assisted surgery AS (RAS) from the largest public medical school in Italy. The literature that suggests the need to integrate the medical school curriculum with formal education in RAS robotic surgery is emerging but is still poor. A cross-sectional survey was conducted through the administration of a 24-item questionnaire organized in 3 sections, respectively, inquiring about medical student's knowledge and perception of RAS, their attitude toward this technology and lastly about themselves and their prospective surgical interest. Five hundred and nine medical students were recruited independently of their gender or nationality. Participation was on a voluntary basis only. The students accessed the google form questionnaire through a bar code created "ad hoc" for each medical school year and projected over the classroom monitor right before starting the didactic activities or during the classroom break. Even though only a minority of the students (41.7%) expressed a prospective interest for a surgical career and a significant proportion of them did not have any background knowledge in RAS (63.5%), most of them suggested that medical schools should offer curricular and/or extracurricular learning opportunities on RAS (89.4%). Our findings hint educators to think critically and perhaps consider the possibility of revising the existing official curricula that aim to train the future generations of physicians and surgeons.