The aim of this project is to design and develop laparoscopic box trainers (DIY box trainers) on a budget to improve the technical skills of medical students with an interest in surgery as a career.
Standard laparoscopic box trainers are reserved for postgraduate surgical trainees and surgical societies do not generally have access to expensive simulation equipment. The design, build and road testing of a home-made version suddenly affords medical students the luxury of deliberate practice in visuospatial skills and makes mastery skills training a reality. It is believed that this has not previously been achieved in an undergraduate setting in Ireland.
Project Team & Links
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Lead student partners: Tingyi Koh, Samuel Lee
Lead staff partner: Prof. Michael Kerin
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Navian Lee Viknaswaran,
Rachelle Carolyn Soh
Keunjae Ahn
Paul JoonKoo Choi
Nicolle Clements
Audrey Zhang Anyi
Jeewie Welikumbura
Josh Regier
Niall Hanley
Staff partners:
Prof. Michael Kerin
Dr Manvydas Varzgalis,
Dr Niamh Foley,
Dr Dara Byrne.
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Association of Laparoscopic Surgeons of Great Britain & Ireland
Association of Surgeons of Great Britain & Ireland
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Project Updates
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We have acquired the necessary building materials essential for constructing two prototypes of the laparoscopic simulator. We successfully built them last Friday and had them tested out to see if there are any improvements we can make before making the rest of the models. The prototypes have been a success and are fully functioning. We are excited to build the remaining 13 models. Once the simulators are finished we plan to conduct student workshops to test their efficacy. We hope to start the workshops by February.
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Construction of all our homemade laparoscopic simulators has been completed. We will be conducting a comparison study testing the efficacy of skills learned on the homemade laparoscopic simulators versus the professional laparoscopic models. We have trained the study participants on the homemade simulators. They have been practicing skills such as sugar cube stacking, and completing the shoelace task. Each study participant has practiced the same number of hours and the same kind of laparoscopic skills. The comparison study testing will be carried out by the first week of May.
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