K. B. Gil1, T. J. Mouw1, M. Jones1, P. J. DiPasco1 1The University of Kansas Medical Center,Surgery,Kansas City, KANSAS, USA
Introduction:
Previous studies have tested the effect of music on surgeons’ performance. These studies have shown reduced autonomic reactivity, improved quality and time of wound closure, and improved suture tying and mesh alignment using a robotic surgical system, while listening to preferred music. There is growing evidence supporting the benefits of preferred music on task performance, however there is a paucity of data regarding the potential impact on surgical and procedural learners. Surgical residents and medical students are often subjected to the preferred music of the attending surgeon, which may often be a non-preferred genre for the learner. There is currently no data evaluating the impact of listening to nonpreferred music on the performance of untrained individuals who are learning new surgical tasks.
Methods:
31 medical students at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City were recruited by email to participate. Each participant filled out a survey to collect demographic information, music preferences, and assign each participant to a randomization group. Each participant underwent three training modules on the Da Vinci Si simulator under silent conditions. Each participant was then randomized to perform the same experimental task twice while listening to both preferred music and non-preferred music. Randomization determined whether a participant would listen to preferred music on their first trial vs their second trial. This was done to control for improvement that a participant may show simply by repeating the task. Following completion, each participant was given a score calculated by the Da Vinci surgical system. Scores range from 0-100 and are a composite based on metrics such as time to completion, number of errors, and economy of motion.
Results:
31 participants participated in this study. The group which began testing with preferred music and repeated the task with non-preferred music had no significant change in their test scores (72.73 vs 74.33, p=0.34). However, the group that began with non-preferred music and repeated the task with preferred music showed significant improvement between trial runs (70.31 vs 81.88, p<0.001). There was no significant difference between the initial runs for each group. When analyzed irrespective of group assignment, there was a significant increase in scores for preferred music vs non-preferred music (77.45 vs 72.26 p=0.025).
Conclusion:
Participants showed expected improvement with task repetition. This improvement may have been offset by exposure to non-preferred music during repeat runs. Our findings suggest that the impact of music was nearly as large as the impact of prior exposure to the task. This may have implications for environmental conditions during resident procedural training, especially early in residency training when new tasks are being introduced and the skill level of the learner is still low.