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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: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:10PM
Perhaps true, but without those fine motor skills, you don't want your surgeon squeezing a couple tubes of superglue into your innards. Nor do you want him shooting staples at and around your major arteries. You might prefer to just lie there, and wait for researchers to perfect nanobots to do what the surgeon should have been able to do.