Posted on 10/30/2018 8:21:23 AM PDT by Winniesboy
Leading surgeon says lack of hobbies and creativity in schools has affected children’s practical abilities. New medical students have spent so much time on screens that they lack vital practical skills necessary to conduct life-saving operations, a leading surgeon has warned.
Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College London, said that a decline in hands-on creative subjects at school and practical hobbies at home means that students often do not have a basic understanding of the physical world.
Kneebone said spending hours engaged in virtual worlds was no substitute for experience in the real world.
“Partly it stops [students] being aware in three dimensions of what’s going on around them, because their focus is much narrower, but also it takes away that physical understanding you get by actually doing things,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live. “That has to be done in the real world with real stuff.”
Kneebone said there had been a “very serious knock-on effect” on practical skills among students since smartphones had become so popular.
He said: “We have noticed that medical students and trainee surgeons often don’t seem as comfortable with doing things with their hands … than they used to even perhaps five or 10 years ago.
“People are no longer getting the same exposure to making and doing [things] when they are at home, when they are school, as they used to.”
He claimed that cutting back on creative subjects at school had a negative impact on the tactile skills necessary for a career in medicine or science.
Kneebone said: “We are talking about the ability to do things with your hands, with tools, cutting things out and putting things together …
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Pooh. A guy in my ORganic Chem class got in with a “C-“ in Organic. Of course, he claimed his grandmother was Apache.
Years ago at an airshow standing in line to see the Navy Recruiter flight simulator with my then 10 year old son. We were at the head of the line when the group before us exited the trailer. The next scheduled “pilot” was late in showing up and delayed our turn. The recruiter turned to me and said that he’ll just give him a couple more minutes and then he’ll have to find somebody else.
I told him my son could probably fly that thing. The guy looked at him and asked him he really thought he could. My son laughed and said, “Yes, Sir.” He had previously been playing on some old computer flight simulators as well as Nintendo flight games since he was about 6 or 7.
He took him inside the trailer for a few minutes to see what my son could do and stepped back out and brought the next group of people standing in line to observe. He gave a quick briefing to my son, the “pilot” and then my son proceeded to launch off an aircraft carrier, fly a few miles to the coast, head in between some mountain peaks and locate a target in a valley, turn and head back out to sea and home.
The recruiter said that video games, to some degree, were actually a blessing for recruiting potential aviators.
>_<
I was about to add that...!
Great minds, you know the rest.
Tech ain’t everything
Most surgery will be robotic sooner than we think. I just had back surgery of replacement and fusion. My surgeon is outstanding. Some patients are not so lucky.
Nice!
Unfortunately, for an F-35, it requires 50 maintenance work hours on the ground for every hour in the air.
I know it’s a joke and all, but mechanics don’t even rebuild engines anymore.
They install used ones and call it a day. I have some valve issues that I have to take care of myself because no mechanic will touch the job. they fear after they are done ‘something else will go and you’ll need a new engine anyway”
As a retired educator, I am all too aware of the vast overuse of keyboard entertainments vs. playing with real toys. The makers of computer games and such claim that their use improves hand and eye coordination. Yeah, between eyes and a mouse. I absolutely believe that there is NO substitute for hands-on learning. Only by actually touching, feeling, and manipulating materials will a person learn of their consistency, weight, and true nature. Despite the rise of “robo surgery”, the wielder of the setup still has to intimately know the physical nature of what they’re cutting and stitching. You don’t get that from a keyboard and a mouse.
I get his point. I once saw video of a woman having knee replacement surgery. It was shockingly mechanical. Reminded me of every car and home repair job I had ever done.
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At a certain level, the human body is a mechanism. A very complete mechanism. It is interesting how with computers absorbing more of people’s free time, probably fewer and fewer engage in hobbies requiring physical dexterity. That could be a problem!
Nah its
Gaye Longbottom
Doing things same as in Florence Nightingale era
In the USA we have Intuitive Surgery:
Give them four hours and check back to see what they have constructed.
There is no substitute for dissecting a human body to gain hands on experience. I’m donating my body to the local medical school when I die so that future doctors can get that experience. I would rather use my carcass to train doctors than have my family spend money on an expensive funeral
One key issue that is not allowed to be spoken of: much higher rates of female doctors.
Females generally do not seek out surgical specialties. It doesnt seem to appeal to their career goals.
Now that the majority of med students are female, we have an inevitable shortage of incoming and current surgeons.
Not to mention that female doctors only practice for about 2/3rds as long as male Drs. Which is going to cause additional Dr shortages in my lifetime.
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