Introduction: In the era of flowering minimally invasive surgical techniques there is a need for new methods of teaching surgery and supervision of progress in skills and expertise. Virtual and physical box-trainers seem especially fit for this purpose, and allow for improvement of proficiency required in laparoscopic surgery.
Material and methods: The study included 34 students who completed the authors' laparoscopic training on physical train-boxes. Progress was monitored by accomplishment of 3 exercises: moving pellets from one place to another, excising and clipping. Analysed parameters included time needed to complete the exercise and right and left hand movement tracks. Students were asked to do assigned tasks prior to, in the middle and after the training.
Results: The duration of the course was 28 h in total. Significant shortening of the time to perform each exercise and reduction of the left hand track were achieved. The right hand track was shortened only in exercise number 1.
Conclusions: Exercises in the laboratory setting should be regarded as an important element of the process of skills acquisition by a young surgeon. Virtual reality laparoscopic training seems to be a new, interesting educational tool, and at the same time allows for reliable control and assessment of progress.
Keywords: box trainer; post-graduate training; pre-graduate training; surgical curriculum; surgical training; virtual laparoscopy; virtual trainer.