%0 Journal Article %T Simulador laparosc¨®pico como herramienta de aprendizaje %A Aponte-Rueda %A Mar¨ªa E %A Saade-C¨¢rdenas %A Ram¨®n %A Navarrete-Aulestia %A Salvador %J Revista de la Facultad de Medicina %D 2009 %I Scientific Electronic Library Online %X objectives: to evaluate the effect of the structured practices of basic laparoscopic skills in an inanimate simulator when comparing the performance of medicine students with first year residents of general surgery. methods: were evaluated ten first year residents of surgery postgraduate of caracas university hospital and ten third year medicine students of "luis razetti" school, cathedra of surgical therapeutic and clinic "c" service of surgery iii, without previous surgical experience. both groups had a evaluation session of basic laparoscopic skill, attending one, two or three sessions of practices of one hour weekly with a program of five laparoscopic tasks. the initial score was obtained during the first practice and the final score after the last practice. the practices were done in the experimental surgery institute of the central university of venezuela. results: no significant differences between both groups in the initial and final times. the subjects in both groups showed a global improvement of their score in all the tasks (p<0.0006). in the scores of the final practice, as much in the students group as in the residents group there was statistically significant improvement (p=0.0313). when comparing the final score obtained by each group were no significant difference with respect to the improvement reached of the initial time, reason why both improved without predominance. conclusions: the laparoscopic simulator is an effective tool for the development of laparoscopic skills in residents and people without surgical experience, through the accomplishment of structured practices in a period of time. %K laparoscopic simulator %K training model. %U http://www.scielo.org.ve/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0798-04692009000200011&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en