Waseda bioinstrumentation system WB-2R as a wearable tool for an objective analysis of surgeon's performance

There has been an ever increasing amount of research and development of technologies and methods to improve the safety of surgery such as Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS). While these new technologies and methods have many advantages for patients, they often require surgeons to undergo long and difficult training. In this context, several training methods and metrics have been proposed, both to improve the surgeon's abilities and also to assess his/her skills. Our research is aimed at using WB-2R (Waseda Bioinstrumentation system NO.2 Refined), to investigate and analyze a surgeon's movements and performance. In this paper, we analyze the effects of two days of laparoscopic training on a novice subject. By using the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) of WB-2R it is possible to evaluate the novice's ability and improvement to handle surgical instruments and perform some knots of basic C-Loop suture. The preliminary analysis of the data acquired during the experiments (the mean and standard deviation of acceleration; 95% cumulated distribution of acceleration; the path length of the movements of hands and the execution time completing the knots) clearly shows the novice's improvements after the training. WB-2R system could provide additional information improving to help assess the experience and performance of surgeons, and to show the effectiveness of laparoscopic training. These analyses and modeling are an important step to realize a better training/evaluation system for surgeons during MIS, to understand better how the surgery is performed.