The surgeon who is learning needs to see everything possible. There are issues of anesthesia, positioning the patient, positioning the surgeon, positioning the assistants. There are the techniques of safely putting in the trocars. You need to see the instrument placements. Nothing is like the real thing.
Endoscopic surgery is more of a team effort than conventional surgery and there is more to see.
So it is very important for the new endoscopic surgeon to observe the whole team at work, including the operating room setup. That brings up an interesting point. We encourage people to bring the entire OR team. People in training can play the role they will be playing in the OR back home. We have anecdotal evidence that efficiency increases if the OR team works together before doing their first case in a patient.