What Makes an Expert Surgeon? Novel Metrics for Evaluating Skills in Simulation

Across all measures, experts produced fewer sudden movements, demonstrated more consistent and purposeful motion, and completed tasks more efficiently. Although some metrics-such as cluster mean jerk and axis coordination-did not always reach statistical significance, they showed very large effect sizes favoring expert performance. Taken together, these results underscore that experts consistently outperform novices across both quantitative and qualitative assessments of procedural motion. Motion metrics can thus provide feedback for surgical training.