<p>I have no interest whatsoever in being a surgeon. I get grossed out easily and have shaky hands.</p>
<p>My question is how do surgeons actually learn surgery? I know the obvious answer is medical school, but seriously. How do surgeons get practice on living people? Do they use dead bodies to practice in school? Who is supplying the cadavers? How do you even teach it? What is a typical lesson like? What happens when you mess up? Maybe someone should just link me to a video of a medical school class on surgery, because I have almost no idea how a surgery class works.</p>
<p>Yes they use cadavers in medical school from people who donate their bodies to science. Also to elaborate surgeons go to mars to learn the secret ways of Ameliyattan from the Nindo tribe ( a secret race of japanese that made it to the moon in 1974.) After 9 years of mind numbing/tedious practice the surgeons return to earth where they hone their skills on bodies contrived from their Mars training.</p>
<p>Surgeons are trained primarily in residency in hospital-based programs that generally last 5 to 7 years after medical school. Those who have surgical subspecialties, e.g., vascular surgery, often have another year or two of fellowship training after completing residency.</p>
<p>Surgery is learned by doing. In fact, all specialties learn by doing. I’m in a pediatrics residency and I’m learning how to be a pediatrician by doing it.</p>
<p>Residency is like an apprenticeship. There are always board certified attendings there to supervise the care given by residents. For surgery residents this means, they have someone with plenty of experience there to watch, guide, instruct and step in should anything happen.</p>
<p>Is there something a patient can sign that prevents student surgeons from operating on them? I would think that a new surgeon would be more prone to mistakes and errors.</p>
<p>well if they go to a university hospital, it’s obvious that there will be students running around.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If everyone did this, there would eventually be no experienced surgeons to operate on you or train others to do so.</p>
<p>Surgeons in training are more likely to make mistakes, but at the same time, the lease is shorter. 1) They themselves aren’t as confident of their abilities, and 2) they have someone with lots of experience looking over their shoulders. </p>
<p>The data does support that surgeons who do a certain procedure more times have better outcomes, but if you only allowed those with experience to do them, you’ll eventually run into a horrible catch-22. Teaching others is important.</p>