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Are Touchscreens Robbing a Generation of Surgeons of Their Dexterity? (bbc.com)
schwit1 shared this article from the BBC:
A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients. Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical. "It is important and an increasingly urgent issue," says Prof Kneebone, who warns medical students might have high academic grades but cannot cut or sew. "It is a concern of mine and my scientific colleagues that whereas in the past you could make the assumption that students would leave school able to do certain practical things - cutting things out, making things - that is no longer the case," says Prof Kneebone.
The professor, who teaches surgery to medical students, says young people need to have a more rounded education, including creative and artistic subjects, where they learn to use their hands. Prof Kneebone says he has seen a decline in the manual dexterity of students over the past decade - which he says is a problem for surgeons, who need craftsmanship as well as academic knowledge.... "A lot of things are reduced to swiping on a two-dimensional flat screen," he says, which he argues takes away the experience of handling materials and developing physical skills. Such skills might once have been gained at school or at home, whether in cutting textiles, measuring ingredients, repairing something that's broken, learning woodwork or holding an instrument. Students have become "less competent and less confident" in using their hands, he says. "We have students who have very high exam grades but lack tactile general knowledge," says the professor.
Interestingly, much of the professor's research is on simulations, according to his web page at Imperial College London, where he leads "an unorthodox and creative research group" that uses professional actors with inanimate models to create realistic clinical encounters, as well as "low-cost, portable yet highly convincing environments such as the 'inflatable operating theatre'."
The professor, who teaches surgery to medical students, says young people need to have a more rounded education, including creative and artistic subjects, where they learn to use their hands. Prof Kneebone says he has seen a decline in the manual dexterity of students over the past decade - which he says is a problem for surgeons, who need craftsmanship as well as academic knowledge.... "A lot of things are reduced to swiping on a two-dimensional flat screen," he says, which he argues takes away the experience of handling materials and developing physical skills. Such skills might once have been gained at school or at home, whether in cutting textiles, measuring ingredients, repairing something that's broken, learning woodwork or holding an instrument. Students have become "less competent and less confident" in using their hands, he says. "We have students who have very high exam grades but lack tactile general knowledge," says the professor.
Interestingly, much of the professor's research is on simulations, according to his web page at Imperial College London, where he leads "an unorthodox and creative research group" that uses professional actors with inanimate models to create realistic clinical encounters, as well as "low-cost, portable yet highly convincing environments such as the 'inflatable operating theatre'."
What TFA is lacking: Any evidence whatsoever that dexterity is actually declining.
It is not news that some old geezer thinks the world is going to hell because kids-these-days are corrupted by some new-fangled thing. That has been happening since Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth in ancient Athens.
I think hand writing with a pen or pencil requires much more physical dexterity than smearing your fingers onto a flat surface. Schooling used to require daily hand written exercise for years, even just taking notes for a few minutes each day - I do think it matters.
Many (mostly boys) are playing video games with console.
Those are totally different skills
I don't know whether this guy is a just some quack
No, he knows what he's talking about. How can you doubt a guy called 'Kneebone' ?
It could be that it is too late to learn that at medical school. Nerves have lost the needed flexibility. Perhaps it is like a foreign language: most people can learn another language perfectly only if they start at early age. Start in your twenties and you can never pronounce it like a native, even if your vocabulary and grammar are ok.
I think hand writing with a pen or pencil requires much more physical dexterity than smearing your fingers onto a flat surface. Schooling used to require daily hand written exercise for years, even just taking notes for a few minutes each day - I do think it matters.
Beyond that, doing things that require using ones hands to manipulate objects develops skills in so so doing. My coworkers are often surprised I can reach behind a machine and screw in or unscrew items by feel without looking at them.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
if 'stitching or sewing up patients' is an important skill for medical students, shouldn't they specifically be taught how to do so?
They are. They start with dummies, then cadavers, then real patients. When my daughter gashed her foot, I assumed the woman in the ER stitching her wound was a nurse, but she was a medical student. The doctor was just watching.
Surgical stitching isn't like sewing cloth. The needle is curved, and it is manipulated with pliers rather than fingers. It looks hard, but if you try it, it is actually easier than the way a seamstress would stitch. You can see better without your fingers in the way, and the pliers give you better leverage.
A friend was teaching in the local university's Drama department about ten years ago and found that most freshmen were initially hopeless when given practical tasks related to costume. Her interpretation of this observation is that they had been under pressure to perform academically for years and practised fine motor skills with nothing smaller than a pen. Those that applied themselves were able learn reasonable sewing skills.
Certainly. Please see the practice of Drs. Thighbone and Shinbone.