Wikisurgery

Wikisurgery is a free surgical encyclopaedia for surgeons and their patients. It has been set-up by Surgical Associates Ltd, owners of the International Journal of Surgery. Contributions in the form of new articles and editing can be made by anyone at anytime anywhere in the world. The site is totally upfront about the possibility of vandalism, and in the ‘About Wikisurgery’ section it says:

“older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles may still contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this in order to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation which has been recently added and not yet removed (see Wikisurgery:Researching with Wikisurgery for more details).”

There is an interesting Basic Surgical Skills Program. Authored by Michael Edwards, the program begins by checking the trainee’s aptitude for surgical handicraft, learning ability profile, suitability for surgery, attitude and preparedness. It then provides 15 surgical sections, progressing through putting on gloves, swabbing, using suckers, retracting, and using haemostats, to excising a mole from simulated skin and suturing the wound. The program starts at http://wikisurgery.com/index.php?title=PrimeSkills_in_Surgery.

If, like me, you have lesser ambitions, take a look at
http://wikisurgery.com/index.php?title=Scissors_07_How_to_cut_with_scissor . Forget about ‘how to cut’, how to hold scissors was a real eye-opener for me. I have now tried the techniques suggested and found that I have lot more control over the scissors when tackling our very fluffy, long-haired cat’s matted fur!