Assessing Validity of Essentials in Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery: Correlation with Global Operative Assessment of Laparoscopic Skills

Highlight

• The Essentials in Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery (v-ESSENTIALS) manual skills exam demonstrates strong validity as a summative assessment for laparoscopic proficiency.
• There is a significant positive correlation between v-ESSENTIALS performance and scores on the validated Global Operative Assessment of Laparoscopic Skills (GOALS).
• Experienced surgeons and those passing v-ESSENTIALS consistently achieve higher GOALS scores, supporting GOALS as a preparatory proxy for v-ESSENTIALS.
• v-ESSENTIALS assessment supports structured competency-based certification in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery training.

Study Background