Comprehensive evaluation of liver resection procedures: surgical mind development through cognitive task analysis

Background: Liver resection is a complex procedure for trainee surgeons. Cognitive task analysis (CTA) facilitates understanding and decomposing tasks that require a great proportion of mental activity from experts.

Methods: Using CTA and video-based coaching to compare liver resection by open and laparoscopic approaches, we decomposed the task of liver resection into exposure (visual field building), adequate tension made at the working plane (which may change three-dimensionally during the resection process), and target processing (intervention strategy) that can bridge the gap from the basic surgical principle.

Results: The key steps of highly-specialized techniques, including hanging maneuvers and looping of extra-hepatic hepatic veins, were shown on video by open and laparoscopic approaches.

Conclusions: Familiarization with laparoscopic anatomical orientation may help surgeons already skilled at open liver resection transit to perform laparoscopic liver resection smoothly. Facilities at hand (such as patient tolerability, advanced instruments, and trained teams of personnel) can influence surgical decision making. Application of the rationale and realizing the interplay between the surgical principles and the other paramedical factors may help surgeons in training to understand the mental abstractions of experienced surgeons, to choose the most appropriate surgical strategy effectively at will, and to minimize the gap.