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Comment by benmercer_dev | Hacker News Reader

Surgeons had long learned sewing skills from their mothers, sisters, and wives. But in 1901, surgical trainee Alexis Carrel’s mother sent him to someone more gifted, Marie-Ann Leroudier, embroideress of Paris’s high society

I'm curious how important agility with hands are for modern surgeons compared to anatomy and medical knowledge in general. What makes a "great surgeon" today?

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It's still super important. Surgeons endlessly practice abstruse knots and take out high-value insurance policies against losing hands or fingers or manual dexterity.

Source: surgeons in my family and wider sphere of acquaintance.

Abstruse? Difficult to understand? Isn't is mostly just extra wraps on a square knot?

Now, difficult to tie I'll grant: fingers and string both covered in blood and possibly fatty residue, time crunch, limited access...

Tie that kidney off for me would you please nurse, my date is waiting for me. Two bowlines and a sheepshank should suffice.

"Abstruse knotting techniques" would probably be more a more accurate phrase. I've listened in on two surgeons discuss at great length and in detail the merits of which knot and access path to use for, say, tying off a vein one-handed, by feel, when it's located somewhere behind another organ. The decision is complicated, so far as I was able to understand the conversation, by the patient's current blood volume and rate of loss.

Why not take out a policy against not being able to practice your profession? Wouldn't they be in a bad spot if they lost their eyesight, but kept their dexterity?

I dunno. That's probably what it is - but I've more generally heard it expressed as "my hands are insured for [$x million]". One friend would say that as a pure status brag, and my uncle to explain why he wouldn't play basketball with the rest of the family.

I visited a surgical museum once (somewhere in Scotland IIRC). They hade a mock "robotic assisted" sewing setup. Basically you look into a microscope and have to use two manipulator arms to tie a knot. I've never struggled so much with such a seemingly simple task, the amount of concentration and fingerspitzengefühl required was more than I could muster. It was a real eye opener to surgical skill.

Sounds like the Surgeons Hall Museum in Edinburgh. I saw the same display there in 2018.

Ahhhh fingerspitzengefühl, I forgot about that one. Thank you for reminding me, I need to start using it more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl

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