Drilling Surgeons

Abstract

Surgical training has traditionally involved a lengthy apprenticeship to a series of master surgeons, who teach medical students and residents the techniques of surgery while allowing them to work on patients in the operating room. This article examines surgical training as a structured environment that prepares students for the embodied lessons taught by a surgeon. It argues that even the most seemingly mechanical of surgical techniques contains social lessons when taught by a surgeon within the rich environment of the operating room.

How do team experience and relationships shape new divisions of labour in robot-assisted surgery? A realist investigation

“…This points to the relevance of the distinctive embodied skills of the surgeon – skills that are difficult to describe formally and, thus, often characterised as ‘tacit knowledge’ (Polanyi, 1962). Prentice (2007) powerfully documents how surgical apprenticeships introduce trainees to these tacit and embodied practices through hands-on guidance and demonstration. Indeed, she notes that ‘verbal guidance is a last resort’ (Prentice, 2007: 551).…”

“…Prentice (2007) powerfully documents how surgical apprenticeships introduce trainees to these tacit and embodied practices through hands-on guidance and demonstration. Indeed, she notes that ‘verbal guidance is a last resort’ (Prentice, 2007: 551).…”

The Contexts of Control: Information, Power, and Truck-Driving Work

“…A chief mechanism for such control is the abstraction and rationalization of knowledge, a dynamic initially documented in the realm of industrial production (Braverman 1974;Zuboff 1988). Traditional craftsmanship and manual labor are embodied, process driven, and contextual (what Zuboff terms "action-centered"); even contemporary professionalized work very often depends on direct local or biophysical perception of cues (consider Daipha [2007] on weather forecasters and Bailey, Leonardi, and Barley [2012] on auto engineers) and embodiment as a tool for knowledge construction (Vertesi 2012;Prentice 2005Prentice , 2007Myers 2008). …”

Cruel Apprenticeship: National Imaginaries in China’s Operating Rooms

“…While surgical apprenticeship is, on paper, confined to certain stages and sites of training, the therapeutic apprenticeship of Chinese surgical training is not always bounded by time or institution. In this section, I propose that the apprenticeship and medical embodiment of surgical training in China also expands beyond the skills and affects generally described in previous ethnographies of surgical training (Bosk 2003;Katz 1998;Prentice 2013Prentice , 2007Collins 1994;Hafferty 1988). These ethnographies describe surgical training as a process of professionalisation, where students are transformed from outsiders to insiders.…”