Introduction

There is an ongoing debate about the benefits and safety of live surgery; however, only few data is available. The International Meeting on Reconstructive Urology (IMORU) is a meeting of live and semi live reconstructive surgeries (e.g., urethroplasty, fistula repair, and implantation of artificial urinary sphincter and penile prostheses), performed by high-volume surgeons only. The aim of this study was to evaluate the participants&[prime] educational benefit including assessment of the quality of surgeries at the 2016 IMORU (VII).

Methods

At the IMORU VII, all visitors were invited to complete a standardized non-validated survey at each day of surgery. Visitors were able to evaluate the educational benefit and the quality of the surgeries using a Likert rating scale from excellent to bad (1-5).

Results

Participants&[prime] survey showed that overall the surgeons (1.34, n=22.9), the surgical technique (1.48 n=17.6) and the surgical presentation (1.55, n=19.8) were perceived as excellent. The structural quality of the meeting was found to be very high (faculty: 1.35, n=24; program: 1.38, n=24; presentation: 1.55, n=23.6; poster sessions: 1.82, n=21.67; technique: 1.4, n=23,34). Improvement of knowledge (1.8, n=24.3) and surgical armamentarium (2.06, n=23.7) were both rated good, suggesting that most participants value the educational benefit. Eighty seven percent of participants would attend the meeting again.

Conclusions

We demonstrated a high educational/learning benefit for visitors participating at a live and semi-live surgery meeting. Standardized participant surveys may be helpful to compare surgical outcomes and educational benefits of live and semi-live surgery meetings.

Funding

none