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Surgery students spend so much time swiping on flat, two-dimensional screens that they are losing the ability to perform simple tasks necessary to conduct life-saving operations, such as stitching and sewing up patients. As a result, students have become less competent and confident in using their hands—leading to very high exam grades despite a lack of tactile knowledge.
Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, argues that two-dimensional flat screen activity is substituting for the direct experience of handling materials and developing physical skills. Such skills might once have been gained at school or at home, by cutting textiles, measuring ingredients, repairing something that’s broken, learning woodwork, or holding an instrument.
Kneebone now notices that medical students and trainee surgeons are not comfortable cutting or tying string because they don’t have practical experience developing and using these skills. He also mentioned that colleagues in various branches of medicine have made the same observation.
See also this BBC news item: Surgery Students ‘Losing Dexterity to Stitch Patients’.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @04:11PM (4 children)
So if a large number of entrants are lack certain necessary skills, the university is going to start teaching them, right? Professor Kneebone seem competent at diagnosing problems in the education system. I bet he can cut something less important, transplant the necessary training, and sew the program together.
I would hazard a guess that most medical students have never delivered a foal, butchered a pig, cut a calf, etc, but somehow we are still able to turn out competent graduates. How did we manage that crisis?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:20PM (3 children)
By the time they get to the university, their brain plasticity is WAY down compared to toddler and elementary school ages.
With a LOT of work and a fair amount of time, they may catch up, and they may not.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:29PM (1 child)
Which brain -- cerebrum, cerebellum, other brain pieces/areas/substructures? Or is it all pretty much the same for plasticity? It would also be nice if some actual research papers accompanied this article, as it seems like mostly general observation.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:33PM
The brain in general.
This suggests that kids should have a mixture of old and new toys to foster needed neural development. Of course, that runs counter to the all or nothing approach our modern society prefers for all issues.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday March 28 2019, @05:47AM
It's not just human doctors. For the past decade or so I've noted an appalling lack of basic surgical skills (incisions, sutures) in younger veterinarians.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.