The World's First 'Operation' Gown

Main Category: Medical Devices
Also Included In: Medical Students / Training
Article Date: 30 Jan 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Medical students will be helped to understand what it is like to go under the knife thanks to a world-first project that brings together art and science.

A unique surgical gown, on international display at the Museum of Science in Boston, should significantly improve understanding of where operation incisions are made, and what they mean to the patient, say its developers at Durham and Ulster Universities in the United Kingdom.

It is hoped the gown, which would be worn by medical students in the classroom, will supplement the traditional plastic models of the human body that are currently in global use as teaching aids. It will also help in explaining procedures to patients, according to the scientists.

The gown has nine zips showing where surgeons make cuts in the body for various operations such as removal of the appendix and open heart surgery and its silk material is more like human tissue than the plastic of the traditional models. Medical students will wear the gown in the classroom whilst fellow students learn about surgical incisions using the zips. It will lead to a greater understanding of what it means to be the patient, say the developers.

Researchers say it will contribute to an improvement in teaching aids currently available. They say that, although the traditional plastic models can be used to show areas of the body and where incisions will roughly be made, they are not able to give medical students a sense of the feeling if they were the patient or show them the type of texture they will find once they have made an incision.

Source: Leighton Kitson
Durham University