Thread: Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients'

Around here, if you end up in the ER needing stitches (or kids do, either way...) it's a good idea to ask if there is anyone on duty who is a plastic surgeon, especially if there's a need to stitch in a visible area (face, arms, etc). Goes to the comment about craftsmanship above - they are artists with stitches.

It never hurts to ask.

Originally Posted by D.W.

Around here, if you end up in the ER needing stitches (or kids do, either way...) it's a good idea to ask if there is anyone on duty who is a plastic surgeon, especially if there's a need to stitch in a visible area (face, arms, etc). Goes to the comment about craftsmanship above - they are artists with stitches.
It never hurts to ask.

I agree it's worth an ask but I seriously doubt you would find a plastic surgeon in any ER in Australia.

They would probably have a plastics consultant on call but be prepared to have a seriously long wait

Originally Posted by BobL

I agree it's worth an ask but I seriously doubt you would find a plastic surgeon in any ER in Australia.

They're not in the ER, they're just in the facility somewhere or on call.

If it's on the face, don't they superglue it instead of stitching?
Google Dermabond

Even so, I'll bet it's hard to find anybody who is good with the glue when you need them.
How hard can it be to practice on fresh pig (etc) skin?
My greater concern is the internal stitching for vessels and tissues. You gotta snug those up but good.
Bad form to spring a leak in recovery.

I went to school witrh a dude who went on into neurosurgery.
His claim to fame was suturing nerves. As a patient, I'd guess you would appreciate his skill.
Sad thing, he died some years back without an apprentice.

Originally Posted by BobL

My experience was that there is plenty of time in a students week to learn more, it's just that the bean counters have cut the $ to fund hands on lab work. Over my time working at Uni, supervised first year lab work in the subjects I taught was cut from 84 hours a year to 48 hours a year. 3rd year was cut from 168 hours a year to 72 hours a year and for students in certain streams the lab work was "optional". Result was some students would arrive in Honours and attempt to undertake research and could use a basic instrumentation like an oscilloscope. In first year we had to swap solid subjects in programming and data processing for a dumbest common denominator compulsory subject on word processing and presentation skills. We used to open up labs for senior students to practice working on experiments by themselves (there was always an on duty supervisor that they could call on for help but that supervisor had to cover a number of rooms) but that got canned by the OHS people.

So true, Bob.

And the university's maintenance budget has evapourated. So if that oscilloscope broke down a couple of years ago it will still be in the queue waiting to be fixed ......


Cheers

Graeme

That article is being nice to the students, one of my mates is a doctor at one of the hospitals in Perth. The head surgeon would regularly tell the med students to go hit the gym before coming back into his theatre room. So its not only dexterity that is required but a steady hand.

In regards to stitches to the face, unless there has been a change in recent times (past ten years) they definitely do stitches on the face. Still got the scar to prove it.