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Thread: Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients'

  1. #1
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    Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients'


  2. #2
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    Interesting insight, Derek. Thanks for posting. When you consider many young folks can’t even change a light switch, it says a lot for the future of skilled trades.

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    Professor Kneebone? I had to look and be sure it was a real news site when I saw that name.

  4. #4
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    I find it astounding how difficult it is to translate what I can figure out in my head to my hands. Without actually doing things, and often getting them wrong, it is impossible to really develop the neurology that allows hand skills.
    -Howard

  5. #5
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    This may accelerate the development of the surgery "robots," which, up to now, have been focused on the most delicate operations.

  6. #6
    Who needs to stitch patients when today we have staples. It takes little dexterity to handle a stapler.
    Fair winds and following seas,
    Jim Waldron

  7. #7
    And, of course, we have butterfly bandages, cyanoacrylate adhesives (Dermabond, etc.) and safety pins.
    Fair winds and following seas,
    Jim Waldron

  8. #8
    Then, too, it's rarely a surgeon who stitches/staples/glues the patient. It's more likely either some Physician's Assistant or Nurse Practitioner finishing up and closing up the patient so the surgeon can make it for his tee time.
    Fair winds and following seas,
    Jim Waldron

  9. #9
    Similarly the use of CAD systems for mechanical drawing instead of old fashioned drafting on paper, vellum, or Mylar has its own issues. I constantly receive customer drawings from yung engineer done on CAD systems which are elegant but unmanufacturable due to inadequate space to install all of the features. When a part 1" x 1" shows up on a screen filling almost the full screen it is easy for the engineer to pack 10 pounds in the proverbial 5 pound bag. Unfortunately at times technology doesn't substitute for common sense.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Anderson NH View Post
    Similarly the use of CAD systems for mechanical drawing instead of old fashioned drafting on paper, vellum, or Mylar has its own issues. I constantly receive customer drawings from yung engineer done on CAD systems which are elegant but unmanufacturable due to inadequate space to install all of the features. When a part 1" x 1" shows up on a screen filling almost the full screen it is easy for the engineer to pack 10 pounds in the proverbial 5 pound bag. Unfortunately at times technology doesn't substitute for common sense.
    What's interesting is that the furniture artisans I've had the privilege to learn from reject CAD as a design tool emphasizing the importance of drawing as the initial stage of design. While some acknowledge that CAD may have a role, they believe there's no substitute for the ability to draw and sketch.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike King View Post
    What's interesting is that the furniture artisans I've had the privilege to learn from reject CAD as a design tool emphasizing the importance of drawing as the initial stage of design. While some acknowledge that CAD may have a role, they believe there's no substitute for the ability to draw and sketch.
    This recalls the laments of an engineer who worked along side me and a few other drafters and engineers at a breathing air compressor company. One of his tirades was how the contractor would read the drawings wrong since they had mostly eastern European machinist who were familiar with different standards to drawings. He said, "in the old days the engineer would design it, draw it, go down to the shop and make it and then return to the drawing board to make any corrections."

    This was before CAD was established in most engineering/drafting applications.

    The only thing that is certain is change.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  12. #12
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    I prefer humans, thank you.
    Likely how long we will have humans to do this depends on how long it takes for medical robotics to find inroads into rural areas?

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  13. #13
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    I blame their grandmother’s, if they had been taught to darn socks before the age of ten by their grandmother (like me) we wouldn’t be having this trouble. Bout the same time I took up woodwork......
    My nurse wife works for a surgeon who can cut and sew but has no time for the keyboard!
    ​You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!

  14. #14
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    When I first read this a few days ago I immediately sent it to a friend and texted "They should all learn how to sharpen and cut." Spending some time in the kitchen might actually help my Gen X peers' tactile knowledge. For years I've been bemused when looking at my siblings and watching them struggle with a kitchen knife and point it and dropping it on onions as if they're waving a wand like Hermoine in Harry Potter doing "Wingardium Leviosa." Though recently after a few months and a piqued interest in cooking my youngest sibling can handle a kitchen knife proficiently.

    I think home sense sort classes and wood shop/ music will be well missed far too late as they shrink and shrink. Finger dexterity and confidence in your tactile senses are go only as far as you maintain them. I quit violin a decade ago and rarely pick it up except a short period where I taught a friend who attempted to learn the instrument. I could remember much of the movements and what not but boy that was real hard on the fingers wrists arms shoulders and ego. I was doing some organizing in my room and opened up my violin case and messed around with the fiddle and realized I might've gotten much stronger compared to when I was 10 but now without the technique honed and maintained daily a decade ago I would easily injure myself doing vibrato with the wrong sort of approach.

  15. #15
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    Sounds a bit like the lament of an elderly surgeon. I well remember the distress of an administrator when we began to staple wounds. He asked how the residents would learn to sew. We replied that they probably wouldn't have to, but if they did being young they would learn far more quickly than he could learn how to staple. Don't give up on youth.

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