Recently, the use of technological teaching modalities in functional urological surgery education has increased significantly. It is essential for these technological products to be standardized so that they can be integrated into the education curriculum. The School of Modern Technology works to deliver gold standard educational resources and project proposals in Modern Technology to ICS members through e-Learning and work placements at international centers of excellence. Our working group has been working under the umbrella of IEEE since 2017 as IEEE 3D Based Medical Application Working Group (EMB/Stds Com/3333.2) sponsored by IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Standards Committee mainly focusing on 3D Medical Printing including soft and hart tissue, implant, surgical guide printing and bio-printing. Main aim of this study is the creation of Standard Simulation-Based Functional Urologic Surgery Training Syllabus and Curriculum under umbrella of ICS with using 3D solutions (3D virtual surgical models, medical printing). We would like to share our preliminary results with this abstract which includes 17 surgical procedures (10 female, 7 male), enrolled for preparation of procedure-based simulators.

The steps of the preparation of simulation-based training syllabus and curriculum in the scope of EuroSOMT project are; production of patient-specific CT-reconstructed 3D printed models with using patient/cadaver radiological data, creation of VR/AR models with using the same 3D modeling scans, establishment appropriate syllabus and preparation evaluation documents,  assessment of skills (technical and cognitive) in learning-training and teaching activities, preparation of e-learning videos. Working group was created by 20 participants from various disciplines and countries, mostly within the body of ICS. We know that there are many different surgical procedures on functional urological surgery with various degree of difficulty. For this reason, we chose the basic procedures for training purposes to enroll the study and possible training curriculum. 

The 17 surgical procedures were graded in terms of difficulties and complexities from level 1 to 9. For each of them; 10 surgical steps including important anatomical landmarks through tissue dissection, 2 difficult techniques/anatomic challenges, short e-learning surgical video were included into the curriculum. However, for quality assessment of training sessions (knowledge and learning degree of trainees / realistic and usefulness of 3D simulators), 5 questions related surgical anatomy and surgical skills, evaluation of practical skills and cognitive skills and parameters of simulators were prepared as well.

Learning&Teaching&Training activities were programmed in accordance with the proposed curriculum. The program of the first of these is shared as an attachment.

Until now, functional urological surgery did not have a curriculum based on 3D digital and physical models created from real patient radiological data. Our working group worked with both ICS as School of Modern Technologies and IEEE as 3D Based Medical Application Working Group (EMB/Stds Com/3333.2) to prepare step-by-step and reproducible syllabuses based on anatomical landmarks.

When technologically standardized models and a new curriculum covering them are created, it will be easier to receive training for inexperienced surgeons and surgeon candidates  in functional urological surgery, which is difficult to perceive and implement.

Continence 2S2 (2022) 100282
DOI: 10.1016/j.cont.2022.100282