Introduction
NGENUITY
LENS
Surgical training is preponderantly associated with a face-to-face method of training in which the mentor and the student participate in the surgical procedure. This relationship is historically important in the surgeon’s learning process during the training period. However, the constant evolution of technology in the medical field leads surgeons to deal with a greater complexity of surgical techniques and a greater volume of knowledge to be acquired during their careers. Thus, access to new technologies and the transfer of knowledge for new surgical techniques may face geographic barriers imposed on surgeons due to the limitation of being far from appropriate mentoring to learn these new procedures [Another relevant limitation arose in the period of the pandemic related to COVID-19, where several residency programs worldwide had their elective surgeries postponed with no expected resumption. Continuing to teach courses, research projects, and scientific meetings also had to be discontinued, mainly harming the ability to learn for physicians in training [Telemedicine is “the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve a patient’s clinical health status” [The growing use of 3-D visualization system technology in ophthalmology, especially in vitreoretinal surgeries, allows the surgeon to operate on patients s with excellent visual quality, minimal delay, and a good depth of focus. Systems, such as the NGENUITY® 3D Visualization System (Alcon, Fort Worth, TX, USA) allow surgeons to perform and monitor the procedure in real-time through the use of passive 3-D glasses with all experiencing the same view as the main surgeon. The use of this technology has been frequently used in congresses with live discussions of surgical procedures. Despite the growing use of this technology in ophthalmology, there is no study in the literature that assesses the effectiveness of telementoring as an option to acquire new knowledge or improve surgical technique in ophthalmic surgeries.The purpose of this study is to compare telementoring as a complementary tool for surgical training of a scleral fixation technique that uses a 4-haptic intraocular lens (Akreos A060 Bausch & Lomb, Rochester, NY) and Gore-Tex CV-8 polytetrafluoroethylene sutures (W.L. Gore & Associates, Newark, DE), with face-to-face mentoring via a 3D visualization system.