1st and 2nd years scrubbing in?

[adrexel]

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Are 1st and 2nd year medical students allowed to scrub in if they are shadowing a surgeon?

 

[Skylizard]

ASK YOUR ATTENDING

 

[adrexel]

Given that the attending will allow you to scrub, is it legally allowed for a 1st or 2nd year to scrub in?

 

[surg]

I'm not aware of any laws that would prohibit this. The real question is who assumes the liability? If you are at your University hospital or an affiliated one and this is part of your education, the school covers you with their malpractice insurance. If you aren't, then the hospital and/or the surgeon involved could be liable for you if you do something that causes a problem (or I guess you could be as well, but you're not exactly a deep pocket and could reasonably be termed to be an "agent" of the attending surgeon who can only be asked to perform to the level of your training, which is nil)

Bottom line: it's legal in virtually any context. If this is at your school's affiliated hospitals it is probably no problem. If it isn't a teaching hospital or the surgeon doesn't regularly participate in teaching, it may be against hospital rules or the surgeon's malpractice carriers rules to use an unlicensed assistant but that is their call. It is unlikely but possible that you could get in trouble for it personally.

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer, don't even play one on TV. Just rambling based on what I think sounds right.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Depends on the attending and the policies of the of the hospital/OR.

Generally, medical students are covered for liability and are allowed to scrub as long as the attending surgeon is ok with it. Others are often prohibited (ie, one of the surgeons here wanted his son, a medical student elsewhere, to scrub in and was told he wasn't allowed because the hospital's medical defense insurance wouldn't cover him, nor would his school's since he was just here on vacation).

Check with the attending concerned for direction.

 

[imtiaz]

I'm doing research with a surgeon over the summer, and he has told me that I'll have opportunities to scrub in. I was wondering about this too, I wasn't expecting him to let me scrub in, but hey if he is going to let me I'm not going to refuse! 🙂

 

[neilc]

i scrubbed at least 20 times with a local surgeon before i was even a med student. no problem. the doctor has to ok it, the hospital has to ok it and the patient has to ok it. but, it was really easy to get all the approvals and do it. at least it was 10 years ago!

i even got to scrub on a whipple, but i had no idea what was going on...

 

[Pythagoras]

I scrubbed in when i was 17 yrs old at a local hospital. my father is a physician and was friends with the surgeons, so that had something to do with it. Now that i think about it.. they let me do so much stuff that it was probably not very ethical.

 

[Pythagoras]

Oh. i mainly held retractors and at the end of the case, might get to sew up the subcutaneous tissue

 

[md03]

Not unusual at all where I go to school. It's a bit harder to get to scrub general surgery cases at some hospitals, becuase there are usually third year students on the rotation who take precidence. However, the subspeicalists usually don't have any students and are very happy to accomodate. The neurosurgeons tend to have the best reputation in this regard...I know of more than one student, who, as a first year, was allowed to drill a burr hole!

 

[womansurg]

o sweet jesus! Erase this thread before Owl sees it!!

 

[dr barb]

I'm a first year and not only did I get to scrub in on a surgery, I got to make the incision - all the way down the back to the vertebral column. It was pretty awesome! I then got to clean the sepsis with the little squirt gun thing and the sucker (I believe these are the technical terms). The surgeons sewed the guy up though, with me cutting the sutures. All in all, even though it was a simple case, the hands-on involvement made it terribly exciting. For me, I would rather participate in a whole bunch of simple cases where they let me do stuff than really complicated procedures where I have to just stand there and watch for several hours.

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by adrexel
Given that the attending will allow you to scrub, is it legally allowed for a 1st or 2nd year to scrub in?

YES