Journal of American College of Surgeons study finds warm-up helps surgeons improve p...( CHICAGO (February 2 2009) New resea...),Health

CHICAGO (February 2, 2009) New research published in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows a warm-up of 15 to 20 minutes with simple surgical exercises prior to an operation leads to a substantial increase in proficiency of surgical skills in surgeons of all experience levels. The researchers found that a warm-up of both psychomotor and cognitive skills raises surgeons' alertness to a higher level for surgical procedures and improves performance for fatigued surgeons.

The advent of minimally invasive surgery has created new challenges for surgeons, requiring them to perform procedures with difficult-to-manipulate tools that constrain movement. Although new developments such as surgical robotics and more intuitive surgical instruments have addressed some of these issues, modern-day surgical practice often entails prolonged, strenuous cognitive performance as well.

"Warm-up exercises are a 'common sense' practice in many high-stakes professions, such as professional sports or dance," said Kanav Kahol, Ph.D., department of biomedical informatics, Arizona State University, Tempe. "This study begins to lay a scientific foundation for adopting this approach in routine surgical practice, which has become increasingly rigorous and demanding."

Forty-six surgeons across varying specialties and experience levels participated in the study. Subjects performed standardized exercises as a preoperative warm-up. Afterwards, the standardized exercises were repeated in randomized order to examine proficiencies in psychomotor and cognitive skills involved in surgical procedures. Proficiencies were measured by gesture-level proficiency, hand-movement smoothness, tool-movement smoothness, time elapsed and cognitive errors. Additionally, the researchers investigated generalizability of preoperative warm-up by following it with a different task, electrocautery simulation. They also examined the effect of the
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