Spatial awareness in urologists: are they different?

Objective To compare innate spatial awareness skills. using the MIST-VR sys tem (Ethicon Ltd. Edinburgh, a computer-based virtual reality system that o bjectively, tests spatial awareness) among three groups of people (consulta nt urologists, urological trainees and controls who were not surgeons). bec ause urological surgeons require spatial awareness for endoscopic and lapar oscopic surgery, but trainees are selected by academic prowess rather than surgical aptitude. Subjects and methods The MIST-VR system was used to test 122 volunteers in three groups. i.e. 39 consultant urologists, 46 urological trainees and 37 controls (not surgeons). The demographic data recorded for each group inclu ded age. sex. eyesight. handedness. and endoscopic and laparoscopic experie nce. Volunteers performed a repetitive series of three tasks using the syst em. Their performance was measured in terms of time. errors and economy of movement. as well as the duration and accuracy of diathermy in Task 3. Results The consultants were significantly older than the trainees and cont rols (both P<0.001) and had more endoscopic experience (P=0.005). In Task 1 . the trainees made significantly fewer errors (P=0.045) and had a greater economy of movement (P=0.03) than the controls. In Task 2 the trainees perf ormed the task more rapidly than the consultants (P = 0.04) and controls ( P = 0.02). Trainees were more economical in movement than were consultants (P=0.031) and controls (P = 0.046). In the more complex Task 3, trainees ou tperformed consultants in terms of errors (P=0.03). economy of movement (P= 0.046), total diathermy time (P=0.005) and diathermy error (P=0.03). Contro ls performed similarly to the consultants. Although there was a trend towar ds better performance by trainees over controls. this was only significant for time (P=0.04) and total diathermy time (P=0.011). A few participants ha d results that were > 2SD above the mean and several people could not compl ete Task 3. Conclusions Urologists do not differ from the general population in terms o f innate spatial ability in this setting. There are several people who may have a defect in spatial awareness but the incidence was the same in each g roup. Urological trainees outperformed consultants in these tasks: the reas ons for this are unclear. The MIST-VR system is of no help in aptitude test ing for urological trainees. although it may have a role in teaching laparo scopic surgery. Testing other psychometric components may be more important for acquiring surgical skills than innate spatial-awareness skills. Furthe r studies are required to investigate this possibility.