Suturing Skills Event at WHH

The General Surgery department at WHH has recently delivered a very successful event “Essential suturing skills day for Foundation doctors”. The course was organised by Dr Angelos Mantelakis & Dr Chang Woo Lee (FY1s), and Mr Ashish Shrestha (Consultant Surgeon) and this was the second time it has been held.

Thirty foundation doctors from all across the South Thames deanery attended the course. It began with the attendees watching the demonstration videos created by the General Surgery department at WHH. After the videos, the attendees practiced their suturing skills on pork bellies under the direct guidance of the WHH General Surgery team. Four essential skills were taught on this day: simple interrupted sutures with instrumental ties, skin lesion excision followed by matress suture to close, subcuticular suturing with an Aberdeen knot, and finally hand tying of surgical knots.

The feedback from the attendees was overwhelmingly positive with many describing it as a “fantastic workshop” with a post-session questionnaire confirming their confidence in suturing skills had significantly improved following the course.

We would like to thank our consultants Mr Basu, Mr Basnyat, Mr Harinath, Mr Aravind, and Mr Shrestha; theatre nurse practitioners Larissa Williams and Aleksandra Dmitrowicz; and the general surgery registrars and SHOs who took time out to deliver high quality teaching. We would also like to thank our sponsors (ASiT, Q-close & Meril) for enabling this event to take place free of charge.