What at home suture training kits would you advise me to get? I get some training at my local clinic, but I realized I really need to up my game and suture skills.
suture training kits
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Honestly, I don't think they're necessary.
I made a homemade one that worked just fine. Had some tubing to practice ligation, some cloth to practice apposing margins....
Bananas work fine. And you can eat them when you're done.
The important part of suturing is learning to tie solid knots that never fail. The rest of it is comparatively unimportant and will come with time.
What part of your 'game' needs to be improved?
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I've never tried bananas. I've used raw meat, more expensive but not a lot.....a cheap small piece of roast at the end of its "best before" date.
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We use wet, synthetic chamois (folded, pulled taut over a clip board) to practice skin suturing at school. It's a decent representation of skin, and isn't as expensive as many of the skin simulators that the human folks use. Try to get your hands on expired suture of different materials, OP. Monocryl/PDS/Biosyn feels very different than nylon, etc. with respect to handling/knot security/degree of stretch.
I need to be more accurate with knots, speed is also something I want to work on. The doc that i assist usually leaves me to close up and I find myself not being fast enough for the next patient that is being preped for the next surgery. Its not that we do 10 surgeries a day and the boss is very professional yet easy going and let's me take my time I need without pressuring me..I just want to be more efficient.
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I'm 1.5 years out of vet school and I'm still not fast. Speed is important in some regards but don't focus on it. Focus on your knot security and your incision not dehiscing. Speed will come with time.
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There is nothing more important than secure knots, so don't worry about speed until you've got that set. Once you have security, then you work on efficiency. And since you're really working on knots more than suture patterns and placement, almost any substrate will do, IMO. Most important is instrument handling and suture manipulation; when I was learning a new knot (after being out of school over 15 years), I used expired suture material and placed ligatures around electrical cords.
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When I was learning how to use a surgical laser, I think we used chicken breast??? Does that sound right? (Been a while, and we don't use laser scalpels here.) I remember suturing on it as well and it worked pretty ok.
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Perfect, that's why I asked.
Knots don't require any special material - anything that you can put a needle through will work. And any sort of 'tube' (piece of plastic, a pen, whatever) that you can run suture around can work as a 'ligature'.
Just my opinion - I think the whole "natural model" thing is super unnecessary when it comes to suturing. There are other applications for which it is really useful - catheter placement, venipuncture, chest tube placement, etc. TONS of places where having a 'model' is cool. But suturing just isn't one of them, so I personally wouldn't waste my money.
