Immediate impact of a robotic kidney surgery course on attendees practice patterns

Background The object of this study was to evaluate the immediate impact of a robotic kidney surgery course on the practice patterns of participating urologists. Methods Two surveys were administered to the participants of the International Symposium on Robotic Kidney and Adrenal Surgery held at the Cleveland Clinic on October 2009. Returned responses were entered into a database. Results were reviewed and analyzed. Results Twenty-seven participants (60% of total registered) completed the end-of-course questionnaire. Mean age was 44 years (range 33-65). Mean time from completion of residency was 14 years (range 1-30). The majority of the attendees (78%) had familiarity with both laparoscopy and robotics, but only 22% of them had completed a formal fellowship or mini-residency training in laparoscopy or robotics. All course components received a mean score above 4.5. 92% of the participants planned to perform a 'new' procedure in their practice immediately after the course. Of the 27 participants contacted, 12 (44.4%) returned the 3-month questionnaire. All of them (100%) had performed robotic surgical procedures after the course. Overall, there was an increase of 56% in the robotic cases in the surgical practice of the participants. The actual impact of attending the course on starting or implementing robotic surgery practice was positively rated by the participants (mean score 4.7 +/- 0.45 on scale 1-5). Conclusions A course including lectures, video analysis, live surgery and hands-on session with both simulators and an animal laboratory is an effective educational model for immediately spreading robotic skills. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.