Prospects for the use of objective assessment indicators of surgical skills in medical education: a twenty-year scoping review

Purpose

Automatic and objective evaluation indicators can address the limitations of subjective assessments of surgical skills that are easily influenced by individual subjectivity and provide a more collected and accurate evaluation method. The aim of this study is to investigate, synthesize, and discuss various objective assessment indicators for surgical skills as reported in current literature.

Method

A systematic search was conducted in the PubMed medical database following the PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines. Inclusion criteria encompassed studies involving participants from the healthcare industry and scenarios involving surgical simulations or real surgical procedures. The research involved objective assessment indicators in two aspects: technical skills (TS) and non-technical skills (NTS).

Result

After searching 3366 articles, 70 articles met the inclusion criteria. According to the objective assessment methods used in the included literature, some of which involve multiple methods (n ​= ​3), the current real-time objective assessment indicators of surgical skills can be divided into physical indicators (n ​= ​29), physiological indicators related to brain function (n ​= ​30), and physiological indicators related to non-brain function (n ​= ​14). The surgery types encompassed open surgical procedures, minimally invasive surgical procedures, and basic operations, while the surgical settings involved simulation-based surgery and surgery on real patients.

Conclusion

Currently, research on automatic and objective assessment indicators for surgical skills is in its preliminary stages, and it can indicate the difference between novices and experts, but it lacks the ability of universal, accurate, and detailed differentiation. It is necessary to develop multi-dimensional and multi-scenario combined evaluation methods.