Improving medical students recognizing surgery of glioblastoma removal/decompressive craniectomy via physical lifelike brain simulator training

TL;DR

This study shows that using a lifelike brain simulator helps medical students improve their understanding and skills in performing brain surgery procedures.

Contribution

The study introduces a physical lifelike brain simulator as a novel training tool for neurosurgical procedures in medical education.

Findings

Students showed high satisfaction with the PLB simulator training (average score 4.71 out of 5).

Confidence in performing craniotomy procedures significantly increased after the training.

Most students found the simulator extremely helpful for understanding surgical neuroanatomy and improving surgical skills.

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the benefits of employing a Physical Lifelike Brain (PLB) simulator for training medical students in performing craniotomy for glioblastoma removal and decompressive craniectomy.

This prospective study included 30 medical clerks (fifth and sixth years in medical school) at a medical university. Before participating in the innovative lesson, all students had completed a standard gross anatomy course as part of their curriculum. The innovative lesson involved PLB Simulator training, after which participants completed the Learning Satisfaction/Confidence Perception Questionnaire and some received qualitative interviews.

The average score of students’ overall satisfaction with the innovative lesson was 4.71 out of a maximum of 5 (SD = 0.34). After the lesson, students’ confidence perception level improved significantly (t = 9.38, p < 0.001, effect size = 1.48), and the average score improved from 2,15 (SD = 1.02) to 3.59 (SD = 0.93). 60% of the students thought that the innovative lesson extremely helped them understand the knowledge of surgical neuroanatomy more, 70% believed it extremely helped them improve their skills in burr hole, and 63% thought it was extremely helpful in improving the patient complications of craniotomy with the removal of glioblastoma and decompressive craniectomy after completing the gross anatomy course.

This innovative lesson with the PLB simulator successfully improved students’ craniotomy knowledge and skills.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-024-05621-w.

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