How do surgeons learn where to cut on a patient? This is a question that has been bugging me for sometime. During the gross anatomy first year is that where to know all their general knowledge where to cut? Or is there many factors after this course in medical school? One more question during gross anatomy do they mostly retain all the information where the important body parts are and arteries, veins , and nerves?
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how do surgeons learn where to cut?
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You cut where your attending tells you to.
Ok that a stationary response, but I have a question in residency how do they teach you how to avoid cutting this or that... and in gross anatomy how do you retain the information from the dissection?
1) They read books, then watch similar surgical cases before scrubbing in with an experienced surgeon who mentors them through the case.
2) You have to work to retain or relearn it through constant review.
You review anatomy before each case if you haven't seen it a million times. There's plenty of resources out there, and your first few years you are operating under an experienced attending at all times who will slap the **** out of you if you do something stupid.
Sorry about that.
You study for the cases you scrub in on starting from hen you're on your third year surgery rotation. You read books on how to do the surgery, watch video, and watch attendings and senior residents. You ask questions.
Surgeons know where to cut by looking for landmarks on the body. For example, if a certain procedure requires making an incision half-way between the anterior superior iliac spine and the greater trochanter, then all the surgeon has to do is palpate those two landmarks and then they can identify the correct place to cut.
See one, do one, teach one! Truth is one simply cannot prepare for all contingencies. For the experienced surgeon, what's required is a particular faith bordering on arrogance; an unwavering conviction that your intervention is the patient's best hope for a good outcome, even when you are up against unfamiliar circumstances. For the inexperienced, the best advice is that when you don't know what you are doing, put your hands in your pockets. Of course the hardest part is acquiring experience...one can be certain there will be painful lessons along the way.
Most surgical approaches are named after dead white guys who 50-100 years ago first did it after failing on previous attempts. Your job is to study what they did, watch what your attending does, and then try it yourself.
FWIW, you can find plenty of surgical videos online of surgeons accidentally nicking an artery during a nephrectomy or cholecystectomy.
FWIW, you can find plenty of surgical videos online of surgeons accidentally nicking an artery during a nephrectomy or cholecystectomy.
