Background: Simulators designed for surgical training are a new educational tool that may address the problem of reduced training opportunities for current medical trainees compared to their predecessors. Research has demonstrated performance differences across hand dominance in simulated laparoscopic surgical tasks. To date, no evidence exists with regard to the applicability of this conclusion related to simulated shoulder arthroscopic surgery. The hypothesis of this thesis was that there are no differences in measured outcomes when comparing participant performance during simulated arthroscopic surgical tasks on a right shoulder compared to a left shoulder.

Methods: Using the Touch of Life Technologies ArthroSim™ -a virtual reality based arthroscopic simulator - 60 participants were recruited and performed two simulated diagnostic shoulder arthroscopy training modules: one left shoulder while holding the arthroscope in their right hand for the majority of tasks, and one right shoulder while holding the arthroscope in their left hand. Demographics were collected on each participant, in addition to outcome measures of completion score, and time to completion.. Subjective difficulty was assessed using Likert scales.

Results: After assessing for normality of data, non-parametric statistical analysis (Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test) was conducted to discern if there was a performance difference amongst the cohort when performing the arthroscopy on the left versus right side. When analyzing subgroups by right or left hand dominance, significant differences existed across a number of the performance variables measured by the simulator.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that there was a significant performance difference when participants performed an arthroscopy on a right or left shoulder - individuals show increased performance doing one shoulder or the other. This data has implications for surgical training curricula in that modified equipment or teaching techniques may be considered based on hand dominance.