Surgical fatigue syndrome and EDiS3 intervention, should every surgeon need to know how to mitigate muscle skeletal discomfort?

Background: Surgical fatigue syndrome (SFS) is a frequent, but underestimated, entity that occurs during laparoscopic surgeries. It could impair surgical outcomes, patient safety, and surgeon health. Furthermore, current surgical education lacks effective interventions to avoid it. Discomfort represents the most common manifestation and includes musculoskeletal fatigue, numbness, or frank pain. The most common affected sites are the back neck, dominant hand shoulder, and high or low back. We propose an integral intervention (surgeon posture, instruments/devices design & use and discomfort improvement) that prevents or mitigates SFS.

Methods: An experimental study was conducted on 57 general surgery residents and general surgeons. Participants in the experimental and control group executed standardized laparoscopic knots in a simulator and knowledge, body discomfort, and posture/ergonomic risk was evaluated before and after intervention application.

Results: A statistically significant decrease in discomfort intensity was found in the experimental group. Also, discomfort presentation by the anatomic site diminishes and surgical performance improves.

Conclusions: Intervention prevents or mitigates discomfort associated with muscle-skeletal component of SFS.

Acgme competency: Practice Based-Learning and Improvement.