Fast or safe? The role of impulsiveness in laparoscopic simulator performance

Contains fulltext : 225446.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) BACKGROUND: Little is known about the relation between impulsiveness and surgical performance even though research in similar high-risk/high-skills shows evidence of more hazardous behavior by impulsive professionals. We investigated the impact of impulsiveness on laparoscopic simulator performance. METHODS: Eighty-three subjects participated in a four-session laparoscopic training course. Based on the Eysenck Personality test, we created equal sized high- and low impulsiveness groups and compared task duration and errors on tasks for two laparoscopic simulators. RESULTS: The low impulsiveness group outperformed the high impulsiveness group on damage on the LapSim virtual reality trainer (U = 459, p