Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Who will be affected?
Readers: No access to all 28 journals. We recommend accessing our articles via PubMed Central
Authors: No access to the submission form or your user account.
Reviewers: No access to your user account. Please download manuscripts you are reviewing for offline reading before Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 7:00 PM.
Editors: No access to your user account to assign reviewers or make decisions.
Copyeditors: No access to user account. Please download manuscripts you are copyediting before Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 7:00 PM.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Traditional face-to-face training (FFT) for basic surgical skills is inaccessible and resource-intensive. Non-interactive computer-based learning (CBL) is more economical but less educationally beneficial. Virtual classroom training (VCT) is a novel method that permits distanced interactive expert instruction. VCT may optimise resources and increase accessibility. We aim to investigate whether VCT is superior to CBL and non-inferior to FFT in improving basic surgical skills proficiency. This is a parallel-group, non-inferiority randomised controlled trial protocol. A sample of 72 undergraduates will be recruited from five London medical schools. Participants will be stratified by subjective and objective suturing experience level and allocated to three intervention groups with a 1:1:1 ratio. VCT will be delivered via the BARCO weConnect software and FFT will be provided by expert instructors. Optimal student-to-teacher ratios of 12:1 for VCT and 4:1 for FFT will be used. The assessed task will be interrupted suturing with hand-tied knots. The primary outcome will be post-intervention Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSAT) score, adjudicated by two blinded experts and adjusted for baseline proficiency. Delta will be defined using historical data. This study will serve as a comprehensive appraisal of the suitability of virtual BSS classroom training as an alternative to face-to-face training. The findings will assist the development and implementation of further resource-efficient, accessible virtual BSS training programs during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and in the future.
University College London Research Ethics Committee: 19071/001
Citation
Please cite as:
Nathan A, Fricker M, Georgi M, Patel S, Hang MK, Asif A, Sinha A, Mullins W, Shea J, Hanna N, Lamb BW, Kelly J, Sridhar A, Collins J
Virtual Interactive Surgical Skills Classroom: Protocol for a Parallel-Group, Noninferiority, Adjudicator-Blinded, Randomized Controlled Trial (VIRTUAL)