You've probably heard amazing stories of surgeons performing successful, yet extremely delicate and risky procedures such as open-heart surgery, separation of conjoined twins, craniotomy, thoracic aortic dissection repair, oesophagectom, spinal osteomyelitis surgery, and many more. As a medical student, you wonder how a surgeon can do such an incredible job. Well, the answer lies in lots of training and practicing to perfect your skills.
Best Material To Practice Your Suturing Skills On
While you will learn the basics of suturing in the sim lab, you should do a lot of practicing on your own to be good at it. Here are a few tips on how you can practice suturing:
#1. Suturing on Fruit
Well, you can start learning to suture on fruits such as oranges, bananas, apples, or grapes. Take a scalpel and cut through the peel of the fruit. Suturing a fruit is a great way to learn how hard you should press the scalpel when making an incision and whenever you're penetrating the joint to drain fluid or see if pressure is building in confined spaces ( compartment syndrome).Grape is an excellent starting point for learning how to structure skin is thinner, delicate areas of the body, like the face. Use a scalpel or pair of surgical scissors to make an incision in a grape, then gently insert a surgical thread and needle into one side of the cut and out on the other, and sew the incision back together.
Grape tears up easily and is perfect for practicing to take time and go slowly and making delicate cutting and stitching.
Practice removing splinters with a tomato: Doing minor surgery right reduced pain and risks of infection. To do this, break a toothpick in half and push it deep into a tomato, then take a pair of tweezers, grip the toothpick and remove it. Remove the splinter in the same direction you pushed it in to prevent tissue damage. Use gauze or cotton pad to dap the juice like you would blood from such a wound.
Orange or banana is excellent for making a Those are just a few examples of using fruits to learn to suture; you can use the information you acquired in the sim to practice on your own as much as you can.
#2. Silicon Skin
You can buy silicon skin and practice with it. Irrespective of whether you're practicing at medical school or home, always wear gloves and get right onto it. A major role in determining the efficiency of your suture stitch in silicon skin involves being able to do pre-stitching clean-up and applying the right amount of pressure, angle, material, and grip.
#3. Meat with the Skin On
While silicon skin is very helpful in practicing suturing, it doesn't always behave like real skin. After mastering the basic suturing patterns, you can take things to the next level by going to a butcher shop and buying a suitable piece of meat attached to the skin. Typically, chicken, pork shank, or turkey serves the purpose well, enabling you to practice on something as close to human flesh as possible. Practice making incisions of the meat familiarizes you with human skin muscles, blood, and tissues.
Bottom Line
Practice without testing makes no room for improvement. Therefore, you request a qualified professional or surgeon to monitor your methods and correct you where necessary. That way, you'll be good at what you do and a lifesaver.
