PROFICIENCY-BASED VATS TRAINING
Master VATS skills through deliberate practice.
Structured exercises, criterion-referenced assessment, and expert feedback guide progress from fundamental skills toward proficiency.
How it works
Practice. Record. Assess. Improve.
Every session has a defined purpose, observable criteria, and a clear next step.
Practice
Train one defined technical skill.
Record
Capture a standardised performance.
Expert Review
Get objective assessment and expert feedback.
Improve
Use feedback to focus the next session.
Curriculum
Build fundamental skills before complex procedures.
Focused exercises isolate the fundamental camera, instrument, and tissue-handling skills required for VATS.

Poking
Build precise camera-guided instrument control.
Poke, then open, rotate, and center the instrument at 16 points, alternating hands.

Grasping
Develop coordinated two-handed retraction and tissue handling.
Precisely grasp 16 edge targets in sequence, alternating hands at each target.

Endocutter handling
Plan and control stapler positioning under VATS vision.
Stabilize the lung, place the stapler, and align the anvil with marked lines in both triangles.

Continuous suturing
Develop needle control, suture handling, and a repeatable rhythm.
Place a continuous suture through five consecutive squares in an up-and-down pattern.

Lymph node dissection
Build two-handed exposure and precise dissection technique.
Use the harmonic to dissect and remove lymph nodes, isolating adjacent broncho-vascular structures.

Bronchovascular transection
Develop safe, controlled endocutter passage around vessels and bronchi.
Guide the anvil behind each broncho-vascular structure along a smooth, curved trajectory.
Assessment & feedback
Know exactly what to improve next.
Surgical Deliberate Practice Assessment (sDPA) uses predefined, exercise-specific criteria to make technical feedback concrete and actionable.
Train independently. Expert assessment and structured feedback are delivered asynchronously as structured PDF or video reports.


Longitudinal progress
See your progress. Train to proficiency.
Follow performance across sessions, identify persistent weaknesses, and progress toward a predefined proficiency benchmark rather than a fixed number of repetitions.
Evidence-Based Foundations
Built on deliberate practice. Informed by evidence.
Deliberate practice
Ericsson et al.
Psychological Review, 1993
View studyProficiency-based training
Gallagher et al.
Annals of Surgery, 2005
View studySurgical deliberate practice
Wickramasinghe & Vincent
BMC Medical Education, 2025
View review

