Guest Ian Wong Posted April 22, 2001 Report Share Posted April 22, 2001 For all the future surgeons out there, you should probably learn how to tie a suture so you don't tie it too loose (yielding a big, honking scar), or too tight (choking off the local blood supply and slowing down healing/promoting infection). Try here: Ethicon Knot-Tying Manual: www.jnjgateway.com/public/USENG/5256ETHICON_Encyclopedia_of_Knots.pdf Ethicon Wound Closure Manual: www.ethiconinc.com/page/pdf/WoundClosureManual101702.pdf Ian UBC, MS2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 Doh! Thanks for the link Ian, but many of us UWO meds guys are forbidden from learning how to tie a knot until January. One of our profs is coordinating a study looking into new computer-based techniques to help teach med students this skill - and we're not allowed to learn anything about the procedure until the module is completed! Oh well, I'll take a link at the link after that session. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 True enough...I don't think that we are even allowed to read the words 'surgical knot'.... the rules are pretty strict.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RAK2005 Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 Try this link. It is useful to actually view some of the procedures. meds.queensu.ca/~pmsp/index2.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 Oh no. . . my virgin "non-surgical-knot-seeing" eyes. . . Aneliz is correct, the rules for us are pretty strict. Dr. Spd probably wouldn't even be happy with me responding to this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 and the stakes are pretty high...tampering with the study (by learning/seeing/reading about knot tying) when you promised you wouldn't will get you permanently ex-communicated from any and all subsequent surgical skills workshops...ouch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 Let me put it this way. You can either spend an hour trying to figure it out from pictures, or else you can have a resident/senior medical student SHOW you how to do it in ten minutes flat. Maybe five minutes. Tying knots is one of those things that I think is best done by trying and failing repeatedly, while someone who actually knows what he/she is doing corrects you on the spot. Just like learning to ride a bike or doing a good physical exam, etc. You need to do it in order to learn to do it properly. Learning it in front of a computer just doesn't make sense. Of course, I'm just a lowly med student, but that's my opinion on it. Ian UBC, Med 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RAK2005 Posted December 14, 2002 Report Share Posted December 14, 2002 I agree that doing is the best, but I actually learn really well from just observing stuff, so the vids were actually useful for me. As for the strictness of the UWO suture-nazi (ala Seinfeld), what happens if you're in the OR and watching/assisting surgery ??? Do you close your eyes and plug your ears or something ? :\ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted December 14, 2002 Report Share Posted December 14, 2002 I guess....and if you don't do it fast enough than you will have to withdraw from the teaching study and not be taught knot tying with everybody else....there is a long list of conditions that you have to meet to participate....you have to promise that you have never tied a surgical knot before and that you haven't taken any visual-spatial testing before....so if you ever wrote the DAT you are disqualified too. UWO suture nazi.... :lol I like it...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted December 14, 2002 Report Share Posted December 14, 2002 Yeah, and with this study they will be teaching us first hand, even if we're in the "placebo computer training group." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest therealcrackers Posted December 14, 2002 Report Share Posted December 14, 2002 are we using a placebo computer or a real computer? And how will we know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted December 14, 2002 Report Share Posted December 14, 2002 Might be kind of hard to remain blinded if you are faced with a placebo computer.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mying Posted December 14, 2002 Report Share Posted December 14, 2002 For some reason the words "placebo" and "computer" together conjure up images of iMacs for me. Nothing against Macintosh as an OS... just the design of the iMac... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jmh2005 Posted February 7, 2003 Report Share Posted February 7, 2003 How come you guys can't learn early how to do sutures early on??...that's crazy!! I get the research thing, but denying you a very practical skill early on in your learning?? I agree with Rak!! I'm in 1st year at Mac and have already sewn up a few chins of hockey players in my local ER (after having practiced on a few pork hocks...) and the closure was actually decent...can you folks at Western not do Horizontal electives? Jess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 Of course we're allowed to do electives. But we don't call them "horizontal electives" - just electives (which causes some confusion with summer and 4th year electives, but I digress.) And not all Western med students are banned from learning how to tie surgical knots. One of our classmates has put together this study on a VOLUNTEER basis only, and for the research to go through he needs us to be completely naiive when it comes to surgical knot tying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 No knots for you!!! One year! Ian UBC, Med 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jmh2005 Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 UWO2005, I know that you guys do electives between the academic years, but are you allowed to do an elective DURING your studies in year 1 and 2 (what we at Mac call... horizontals)? i.e. spend a half day a week for 12 weeks in a GPs office, do an 8 hr ER shift a month, etc...? Some of my 1st year classmates have done derm electives, ENT, gen surg, peds, pharmacology, you name it!! I've picked up the suturing skills from my ER elective, definately one of the highlights of McMaster's program and something that all med schools should allow if they don't already...just my two cents! Jess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jmh2005 Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 Thanks for the link Ian...very helpful...but I still need to practice some more!! Jess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest therealcrackers Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 JMH --- some students are very gung ho about electives (that's what we call them, first year through fourth year, matters not), and have done them since the first week of school in first year! Then again for some of the competitive specialties, you have to do that... I have spent a morning or afternoon about 1 week in 2 with an interventional cardiologist since about November of 1st year... and I'm hoping that getting some of this knowledge will help me decide if this is what I want to do once I have some patient responsibility as a clerk next year. Others have done surgery electives, emerg, paeds, obstetrics, genetics, soup to nuts. And even a few have learned to suture. A lot of the rest of us are waiting for that study to start up.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mying Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 doood, I wanna do an elective in soup and nuts.... *tummy rumbling* I didn't do any electives during school in first year. I had a little much else on my plate. Now that I'm doing them in second year, wow, I sure wish I'd been this smart last year. :\ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 As you can see from my colleagues' posts, what I was referring to WAS first year and second year electives. Turns out it's not unique to ANY school - pretty much all of them have some oberver/elective/horizontal elective program. And yeah, I too have had friends learn suturing in the ER - the idea behind this program was to teach AS MANY STUDENTS AS POSSIBLE surgical knot tying skills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted August 16, 2005 Report Share Posted August 16, 2005 Floating back to the top... Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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