Needle Entry Angle & Force: Vision-enabled Force-based Metrics to Assess Surgical Suturing Skill

This paper describes a new set of vision-enabled force-based metrics to be used in the assessment of open surgery suturing skill. A computer vision algorithm, along with an instrumented suturing platform, enables computing metrics of mean needle entry angle, maximum needle entry force, and mean needle entry force. A preliminary experimental study including 12 subjects (5 Attendings surgeons and 7 surgical residents) is presented. Preliminary results suggest that the metrics explained in this paper might be useful in the assessment and training of open surgery suturing skill.