mudphudder

So I learned how to tie basic surgical knots from YouTube.  I tried to get my intern and residents to teach me when I was on my first surgical rotation but the intern was just way too tired (she really tried though) and the residents were too busy.  So I ended up finding a video on YouTube and practicing over and over and over again.  At least with a square knot, you can tell from looking at it if you’ve done it the right way.  Anyway, so I got good at tying surgical knots.  One day in the OR, I was called on to tie off a small vessel–glory of glories! 

And… Boom!  That’s the sound of the mudphudder dropping the bomb on that vessel.  Anyway, the vessel was tied off no problems and we moved on although the attending, fellow and resident started talking about how they first learned to tie a knot–all very sweet stories of mentorship and camaraderie.  When I was asked, I fessed up to learning from YouTube, at which point everyone stopped, looked up and there was an uncomfortable silence.   I don’t know, I thought it was pretty funny.  Whatever.  The patient went on to do quite well and I’m still dropping bombs in the OR (e.g. tying knots).  For those of you equally neglected medical students, here’s a link to some youtube videos on surgical knot tying.  It can be hard to learn, and certainly tested my patience, but if I can do it, so can you.  I found that watching others do it in the OR and asking residents to show me whenever there was a free minute was all helpful in putting it all together in my head. 

I will say that once I got to my proper general surgery clerkship, I received an actual tutorial on how to tie knots (so I wasn’t that neglected).  But, if you are on your surgery clerkship or will be soon and want a quick primer on how to tie those bad boys, grab a shoelace, something to tie it around and check out youtube.

March 1st, 2009 | Category: md / medical student stuff | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL