Survey on Torino courses. The impact of a two-day practical course on apprenticeship and diffusion of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in Italy.

Since March 1991 a monthly course on laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been organized at the Department of Surgery of the University of Turin. To evaluate the impact of this course and to obtain feedback from surgeons in order to improve the teaching of laparoscopic surgery, detailed questionnaires were sent to the participants of the first 20 courses. The outcome of this survey shows that short-residency 'hands on' courses do not represent a completely satisfactory training, either for practicing surgeons or for residents, mainly because of the constraints of time and the lack of proctoring and supervision. Besides, the present study shows a significant difference in the diffusion of laparoscopic surgery in different areas of Italy. However, clinical results reported by this group of surgeons are satisfactory and comparable to the best multicentric series: 2,127 laparoscopic cholecystectomies were performed by 48 surgeons with a conversion rate of 6% and a complication rate of 2.4%.