Can surgical skills be learned?

[SparkleJumpropeQueen]

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Surgery.... I never wanted to be a doctor. I thought it was a disgusting job. But now, I kinda want to be a surgeon. I don't know if I'll be skilled enough. I can handle blood... and some gore... but not that much. I can look at internal organs and be fine. Looking at fat makes me queasy. I'm pretty optimistic that I can change but.. can I? Will I be able to look at gore and organs?

And then there's the other aspect of being a doctor... people skills. I don't know if I can handle telling a family bad news about their loved ones. Can this be learned?

How did your career choices change from high school to after?

 

[styphon]

People are not born with surgery technique skills, it is learned thru hundreds/thousands of hours of repitition. BUT some people do have better manual dexerity and some people are more clumsy.. Some people have trouble viewing a 2D image as a 3D space (as with minimally invasive surgery) - others find it easy (especially ones who play lots of video games).

Handling blood and gore - some are naturals, but lots of people in med school had a hard time starting gross anatomy - but almost all of us got use to it.

I also think "breaking bad news" can be learned. There are even techniques/protocols developed by professional organizations for this purpose.

 

[VisionaryTics]

Boy, I hope surgical skills can be taught, or I'm really wasting time with this residency thing.

Wrt "queasiness", I remember the first time shadowing in an ARTHROSCOPIC knee procedure (a few 1cm incisions around a knee), I got nauseous. The smell of the smoke plume got to me. First anatomy session was very strange and the smell was terrible. By the end of M1 year, I was used to the smell and could dissect fine.

Fast forward to intern year, I can assist on "face-ectomies" (operations removing large parts of face, jaws, tongue, etc), deal with self-inflicted shotgun wounds, and had a blast during head and neck anatomy trying all kinds of crazy approaches like craniofacial resections.

It just takes time.

And people skills take time as well. You don't start out doing everything day one. You get incrementally more experience and practice.

 

[tiedyeddog]

You get used to gore, blood, and bodily excrement. Eventually you no longer even flinch at the site of it.

You also absolutely can get better at delivering bad news. No one, at least no one sane, enjoys giving it. However, there have been studies showing people trained in giving bad news can improve how they do it and how patients react to it.

The surgical skill thing was answered by Tic's very well. It is learned.

 

[dorothyntoto]

The closest I have ever come to passing out in a surgery suite was due to being overheated or very tired. I have a cold currently, and was in surgery last week they had the room temp way up and I felt like I had a 104º fever. The other time was at 2am and the surgeon snapped at the RNFA and me (less me, more FA) but I actually thought for a moment I might end up on the floor. The blood is easy to get used to, and if you can watch a surgeon handle intestines like rope, you can handle anything. The biggest thing is to breathe, eat and drink BEFORE going into a surgery, and if you feel light-heady, queasy, etc you set down anything in your hands and step away from the patient. Both of my situations I overcame with long deep breaths.

For you I feel like you need to be more than 'kinda' interested, and need to get over the 'medicine is disgusting'... if you don't think it's cool, surgery and medicine will totally suck! You should find some docs to shadow and see what you think.

 

[Mad Jack]

Here's the cool thing about people: they can get used to damn near anything. You get used to blood, guts, death, giving depressing news, not being able to save people, etc. I remember the first time I smelled electrocautery- it was pretty damn disgusting. Now it's just like, "eh, that's the smell of cooked people, whatever." Some things will likely continue to bother you a bit (GI bleed is a smell most people never get used to, for instance), bust most things become tolerable enough that they're kind of just a part of the job you don't even notice anymore. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

As to surgical skills, it's often a bit of a half-joke that a well-trained monkey could perform surgery. The physical skills can be taught, but it is more the other aspects of surgery that make a surgeon- when to use what procedure, how to manage patients pre- and post-op, how to best approach a given operation, etc. Surgery isn't just cutting, it's also a very involving decision making and problem solving process. But you'll get the whole dexterity thing down if surgery is what you want, don't worry about it.

 

[Promethean]

Once, I was scrubbed in on Irrigation and Debridement (washout and cleanup) of a dogbite to a young man's arm. He had been trying to escape from a juvenile detention facility and the police dogs tore his arm to shreds. It was in the middle of an epic snowstorm and there weren't a lot of extra staff to go around. So, that is how I ended up not just scrubbed in, but assisting at the field. I had seen a lot of blood and guts and gore in my time, and none of it made me the least bit queasy. But after about an hour of holding retractors exposing the deeper tissues of this arm, I realized that my vision was going black. I had time to get the scrub tech to take the retractors from me before I broke scrub and sat down in the corner for a couple of minutes. Then, I got up and scrubbed back in and we finished the case like nothing had happened.

You can get used to anything... and being unsettled by things you see in the OR is something that can happen to anyone, anytime, no matter what they have seen before. You learn skills of mind, that let you focus on the task at hand, but it is natural for anyone to have physical and emotional reactions to seeing inside parts on the outside of where they should be.

If it is something that interests you, get in touch with some surgeons in your area. Express your interest and ask to shadow with them now. There is no reason that you absolutely have to wait until you are in college to start shadowing doctors. There are plenty of threads here about how to approach people to ask to shadow them. If one says no, thank them and move on to the next. Someone will let you into their OR. That will be your best opportunity to decide if this is really an interest you want to pursue.

 

[alphamine]

Shadow a surgeon. If you're still in high school, you're very lucky, because there are so many programs out there aimed at your age group to help expose you to the medical field. Try to search for shadowing programs in your area. Shadowing and volunteering in acute care will probably help you see whether you can handle it, or actually, enjoy it...Remember that if you do something you truly love, you won't work a day in your life.

 

[SparkleJumpropeQueen]

Shadow a surgeon. If you're still in high school, you're very lucky, because there are so many programs out there aimed at your age group to help expose you to the medical field. Try to search for shadowing programs in your area. Shadowing and volunteering in acute care will probably help you see whether you can handle it, or actually, enjoy it...Remember that if you do something you truly love, you won't work a day in your life.

Unfortunately we don't have shadowing programs here 🙁 I asked my guidance counsellor about it and my only options were volunteering (which I will do when I turn 16, but I think it's mostly administrative work anyways) and Co-op at a hospital, which is super competitive and right now my grades aren't optimal enough. There was another 1 week program at a university near by but it's like $1200. But thanks a lot for your input. I've been watching surgical documentaries like neuro and cardiothoracic and that's not too bad for me to look at. For now I'm just going to focus on my grades.

 

[spenguin]

Unfortunately we don't have shadowing programs here 🙁 I asked my guidance counsellor about it and my only options were volunteering (which I will do when I turn 16, but I think it's mostly administrative work anyways) and Co-op at a hospital, which is super competitive and right now my grades aren't optimal enough. There was another 1 week program at a university near by but it's like $1200. But thanks a lot for your input. I've been watching surgical documentaries like neuro and cardiothoracic and that's not too bad for me to look at. For now I'm just going to focus on my grades.

Try contacting surgeons at local hospitals. They don't have to have an official shadowing program.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Yes, you can learn. Having a natural ability only makes a large difference for the more difficult specialties I believe.