We’re losing strength and fine motor skills because we spend so much time on technology, surgeon warns
Student surgeons now spend so much time on computers and tablets they have lost the ability to stitch, a top professor has warned.
Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College London, in the UK, said young people now had very little craft experience, which was a problem for the medical profession and surgeons in particular.
“An obvious example is of a surgeon needing some dexterity and skill in sewing or stitching,” he said. “It is important and an increasingly urgent issue. A lot of things are reduced to swiping on a two-dimensional flat screen.”
He was speaking at the launch of a report calling for more creativity in the school curriculum, because, he said, “We have students who have very high exam grades but lack tactile general knowledge.”
Imperial College has magicians come in to teach students how to listen intently and shape their hands in a way that is needed to trick an audience, which Prof Kneebone believes are skills useful for the operating theatre.
In February, another senior doctor warned that children were losing their ability to hold pencils due to the use of technology.
Dr Sally Payne, of the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in the UK, said: “Children are not coming to school with the hand strength and dexterity they had 10 years ago.”
She said spending an increasing amount of time with iPads left less time for muscle-building play. Cutting with scissors, pasting and painting, pushing and pulling toys and building with blocks all build fine muscle control necessary to grip and hold a pencil.
QUICK QUIZ
What skills do surgeons need?
What was the report that Prof Kneebone launched calling for? Why is this needed?
What sort of performer has been in to Imperial college to teach student surgeons?
What skills have they been teaching?
What are examples of muscle-building play mentioned?