Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG): Suture Night

I learned how to tie surgical sutures! The Emergency Medicine Interest Group recently held their "suture night" for the express purpose of teaching us lowly first- and second-years such skills that will probably give us a jump start in some of our third-year rotations. One surgeon worked with about 10 students, who each had a pig foot (the kind you buy at the grocery store or butcher shop), a pair of hemostats, and three suture packs.

By the end of the night, I felt fairly proficient at tying simple sutures but was still having some trouble with the mattress sutures, a type of suture used to make sure that the skin doesn't fold in on itself and thus prevent proper healing of the wound. I haven't practiced tying sutures since then and have probably lost most of what I picked up at suture night. This is definitely a skill that demands repeated practice to master. In fact, the surgeon who taught us even referenced The Tipping Point (excellent read!), in which Malcolm Gladwell discusses how a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice is required for a person to become an "expert" in anything.

I have a long way to go.