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Thread: Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients'

  1. #16
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    Talking to my dentist about this today, he said he had read an article with an opposing opinion. It seems with all the video games kids play today they have excellent dexterity. At least when it comes to the skills needed to direct robotic medical devices.

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

  2. #17
    This thread is somewhat like a hammer and nail gun topic! A lot of people don't know how to use a hammer.

  3. #18
    The robots currently being used in surgery aren't autonomous. The surgeon and/or PA or surgical resident are operating the manipulators of the robot to do the surgery including putting in stitches. They are sitting at the control station looking through a stereo optical system at the site where they are working. Surgery with the robot is a good thing for the patient because it only take a few very tiny incisions to get the manipulators inside. Those small incisions are less disruptive to intervening tissue like muscle and they heal faster with less chance of infection. If the surgeon couldn't use the robot, much larger, more disruptive incisions would be required and there'd be a better chance for complications after surgery.

    A few years ago I had an opportunity to use one of the surgical robots that was being used for training. In that case I was only working on silicone blobs and not a real patient. I was able to make incisions and then put in stitches with a curved suture needle. Pretty cool stuff.

  4. #19
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    we can help

    Quote Originally Posted by Derek Cohen View Post
    We can do our part to help correct this - provide opportunities for young people to develop manual skills: woodworking, carving, welding, machining, painting, fiber arts, ceramics, target shooting, music lessons. (Well, for ceramics we go down the road to my potter friend's studio.)

    Some are ahead of the curve. Two of my woodturning students are in veterinarian school - both have proven to be exceptional at the lathe with minimal instruction. However, they are both the kind of people who are interested and want experience in everything. I suspect in every medical school there are similar people - perhaps lacking a natural drive for such things will eventually divert the unexceptional to non-surgical or even non-medical careers. (Some people are in medical school because daddy is a doctor.)

    JKJ

  5. #20
    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.
    On one job I ran we had to call in the engineer for every change. One wall was filled with electrical gear but the wall wasn't long enough to install everything shown on the print. I asked the engineer if we could move a disconnect to the adjacent wall. He looked at the print, then at the wall and the disconnect and the spacing of all the other gear (it was tight) and back at the print. Then angrily he points to the print and says to me, "It all fits here!"
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Julie Moriarty View Post
    On ... "It all fits here!"
    LOL. Been there. Ran a job to install new escalators in the middle of an open department store in NY, and the conc was 2' off. The engineer cam out and said, Well, that's supposed to say 23'. Like we should have known that the 21' on the drawing was wrong. I mean, you just erase it and draw it again in the right place, right? What's the big deal?
    Stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

  7. #22
    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.
    I think engineers should be required to build and use what they design that way we might get some usable , fixable products LOL
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  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bert Kemp View Post
    I think engineers should be required to build and use what they design that way we might get some usable , fixable products LOL
    Automobile (and truck and even lawnmower) designers should be required to service every part they put in the vehicle. I can't count the number of times I've encountered parts that were extremely difficult to access, places no normal human could reach, sometimes requiring me to build or buy and expensive tool.

    When my architect son started school an architect friend told him there are four things an architect needs to know.
    1. how to get the work
    2. how to design the project
    3. how to get it built
    4. how to get paid

    All are important but #3 is the kicker. When doing inspections on construction sites I can't tell you how many stories I heard from contractors and workers about something the architect designed that was difficult or even impossible to build. Some arbitrary things were possible but grossly inefficient and overly expensive - for example the architect who specified 16'2" dimensions when he should have known that a 16' board is cheaper than a 14'. With some feedback, one firm actually started thinking about this.

    JKJ

  9. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Carey View Post
    LOL. Been there. Ran a job to install new escalators in the middle of an open department store in NY, and the conc was 2' off. The engineer cam out and said, Well, that's supposed to say 23'. Like we should have known that the 21' on the drawing was wrong. I mean, you just erase it and draw it again in the right place, right? What's the big deal?
    And that points to the hands off environment CAD has given us. When you make a mistake, hit Ctrl-Z and it's erased. When drawing with pencil and paper, there's a lot of erasing and redrawing to do so you naturally put in more thought before proceeding.

    Our electronic world may have made things easier but it has also taken us away from living in the real world with the human element at its foundation. Kinda like what's happening with the smartphone generations. Every human interaction is done through an electronic device. Makes me wonder how these new generations are at reading facial expressions and vocal inflections.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Julie Moriarty View Post
    Our electronic world may have made things easier but it has also taken us away from living in the real world with the human element at its foundation. Kinda like what's happening with the smartphone generations. Every human interaction is done through an electronic device. Makes me wonder how these new generations are at reading facial expressions and vocal inflections.
    We watch Netflix and gauge human interaction as unfolds before our eyes.

    I'm only half kidding. Plenty of people still get a good amount of proper human interaction. I think. Hope. Yikes I need to stop making tools for day and see another human.

  11. #26
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    For the last several years before I retired I interviewed entry level chemists for lab positions. I always said that undergraduate chemists should have taken shop in high school so they would know how to do basic repairs on instruments. Word must have gotten out because one of them answered my favorite question (what do you do for fun?) with "I like to do roofing for Habitat for Humanity". Hired her immediately.

  12. #27
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    As a society we don't like to pay for things, whether they be taxes for infrastructure such as a good education, or for a piece of furniture, art, sculpture etc produced by a crafts person.

    We are simultaneously rejecting craft, as well as education in our society.

    It kind of makes you wonder where we want to head, as a society........Rod.

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Orbine View Post
    This thread is somewhat like a hammer and nail gun topic! A lot of people don't know how to use a hammer.
    And some of us who know how, simply can't.

    Between my lack of depth perception (congenital) and my impact-intolerant elbow and shoulder (age-related), I think the guy who invented the nail gun ranks right up there with Isaac Newton.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
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  14. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Rod Sheridan View Post
    It kind of makes you wonder where we want to head, as a society........Rod.
    Talk to your smartphone and let it do all the work. That's where we're headed.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malcolm Schweizer View Post
    Professor Kneebone? I had to look and be sure it was a real news site when I saw that name.
    The surgeon that replaced my knee is named Bohn. Great surgeon and a really nice guy.

    I mentioned it to my GP and he said, "That's nothing, we have a liver specialist in town named Boozer."

    You have to wonder about the day when the med students choose their specialties. They get to Dr Bohn and everyone just sort of expects them to specialize in orthopedics.

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