Inanimate Curriculum Enhances Surgical Skills and Reduces Stress in Residents

Integrating an inanimate training curriculum with virtual reality significantly boosts surgical residents’ technical skills and confidence. Over two weeks, 32 general surgery residents showed marked improvements, with modified objective structured assessment scores rising from 20.9 to 25.8 and task completion times dropping from 773 to 484 seconds. Residents reported feeling more relaxed and experienced lower mental demands, highlighting the value of this combined training approach over VR alone.