Effects of preoperative warm‐ups on veterinary medical students' performance with live dog laparoscopic ovariectomy

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of warm-up on the performance of laparoscopic ovariectomy (LOVE) on a live dog by veterinary medical students. STUDY DESIGN: Randomized experimental, post-test only, control group design. SAMPLE POPULATION: A total of 15 fourth-year veterinary students with prior training in basic laparoscopy. METHODS: Participants were randomly assigned to Group NW (n = 8), who did no warm-up, or Group W (n = 7), who engaged in a 30-min preoperative warm-up using a laparoscopic simulator and a laparoscopic video game (Underground). Laparoscopic surgical procedures were video-recorded and evaluated by a blinded board-certified surgeon (MF). The duration of surgery was recorded, and the student's performance was scored using a previously validated rubric. Outcomes were compared between groups with two-sample t-tests. The a priori significance was set to 0.05 (α = 0.05). RESULTS: ). CONCLUSION: Veterinary students who did warm-up on a laparoscopic simulator and laparoscopic video game just before LOVE effectively decreased surgical time and increased efficiency. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: This study is consistent with the findings in human medicine, supports the use of warm-up exercises in surgical trainee programs before performing laparoscopic surgeries on live animals.