A dry lab for medical engineers?

Twenty medical engineering students were trained to perform three times on a pelvic trainer a sequence of standardized drills connected with the selected MIS techniques, in order to improve their dexterity. The time required to perform each dexterity drill was recorded in seconds.Then, the participants were divided into groups and asked to write an essay about an instrument they chose, analyzing and criticizing the instrument itself.All the trainees showed steady improvement in skill acquisition on the laparoscopic simulator and discussed their essays, making proposals in order to improve the instrument they tested.Significant improvement in performance with increasing skillness has been measured; during the course and during their discussion the participants showed deep knowledge of the instrument, ability to analyze and criticize it and ability to make improvement proposals.Dry lab experience for medical engineering students is useful for teaching and improving analysis and management of laparoscopic devices, allowing identification of problems and developing better devices.The advances in the experience with endoscopic video-assisted techniques have led to the introduction of dry laboratories by several centres. MIS requires training, crediting and caseload, which are not always available in small centres. Moreover, since it is a technologic surgery, new instrumentation need to be tested in a non-clinical environment and eventually discussed with technicians, particularly with bio-medical engineers.In this field an increase in the use of dry and wet surgical laboratories has been observed. A dry laboratory (dry lab) is specific to work with dry stored materials, electronics and/or large instruments, where, unlike wet laboratories, biological tissues (living or dead) are not utilized. These dry labs have equipped workstations for practicing endoscopic techniques, in a realistic setting, on phantoms and organ models.These environments are considered essential tools