DEXTERITY The Operation board game lets nurses brush up on their laparoscopic-assisting skills.

Hand-Eye Coordination
Operation Board Game Sharpens Lap-Assisting Skills

Scrub nurses need incredible dexterity and directional control to assist in laparoscopic cases. To help them develop their laparoscopic-assisting skills and build their confidence in a non-stressful environment, our nurses practice on the Operation board game you may have played as a kid.

This is a simple do-it-yourself project. Remove the top from a cardboard box. Wrap the box in rubberized shelf liner to help the trocars stay in place. For stability, place a few strips of black duct tape on the underside of the box where you make the holes for the trocars. Find an empty OR, lay the box over the Operation game on an OR table, and you're ready to go.

Our OR supervisor serves as the doctor during the hour-long training sessions, in which nurses try to pick up the game's tiny bones and other pieces and place them in different body cavities. As we do more and more laparoscopic cases, it's critical that we fine-tune our nurses' skills. It's better to struggle threading the cholangiogram catheter in training than during the middle of a case.

Jason Fischer, BSN, RN
The Surgery Center of Centralia (Ill.)
Centralia, Ill.
[email protected]

Inside The Box
Wood Board of Nails and Rubber Bands

A laparoscopic surgeon who noticed our nurses practicing their laparoscopy-assisting skills on the Operation board game told us how she made a wood board of nails and rubber bands to learn how to apply traction and counter traction. She honed her dexterity skills by moving paperclips around on the nails. We made such a board, too. It fits easily under the cardboard box we made for the Operation game. Maybe the toughest part of gallbladder surgery for nurses is threading the cholangiogram catheter gas line chamber. As you can see in the photo, the green sponge with gas line tubing coming out of it represents the gallbladder and cystic duct.

— Jason Fischer, BSN, RN