Monday, May 11, 2009

After Chap. 20

Compare your “Fetal Pig Dissection Group” to the O.R. Team described by Nolen. How is the “team” concept beneficial to your learning? To the patient?

30 comments:

  1. After the close of one day with my Fetal Pig Dissection group (the lovely Nairi Strauch and Elijah Ben Izzy) I have found the group dynamic to be crucial to my learning. I am not a squeamish person; however, I am a particularly indecisive person. For this reason, it is easy for me to cut the fetal pig after I've gotten the go ahead from my right hand woman, Nairi. If I did not have her to tell me where to cut, I would not get anything done. Elijah has been a great watcher/note taker/go get Ms. Wiesfield because Alice and Nairi can't make up their minds person. This is a crucial function in our group because we are determined to be as respectful to our dead fetal pig as possible as to not incur massive bad karma. However, this leads us to be sometimes over cautious and prone to sitting around and debating minute details. At these moments, Elijah gets the attention of Ms. Weisfeild, a job neither Nairi nor I could perform since we have our hands on the fetal pig. Also, working in a team we have been able to recognize all the structures necessary, because if one of us misses something, the other two will figure it out very quickly.
    I think that, since our patient is a deceased fetal pig, it is hard argue whether the team dynamic aids the patient. Our patient is already dead. We can only injure the diaphanous spirit of the fetal pig as it circulates the room lamenting its fate. Although, as I said before, our extreme caution, which is aided by the team concept, is an effort to show deep respect for the fetal pig's spirit.

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  2. Alice, I appreciate the content of your post but find it even more impressive that you have managed to spell my name in two *different* incorrect ways in the space of one paragraph!

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  3. My fetal pig dissection group had two other wonderful group members: Zoe and Helen. I was the one who cut everything up and got her hands dirty with pig juice, and Helen and Zoe both alternated jobs of helping pull back skin and muscle and recording diagrams and such. Even though both of them were not so delighted by the smell of the pig, they were both excellent backup because without them I think I would not be able to do any of the dissection: I would have been flailing around. Many times when I needed an extra hand, Helen or Zoe was right there to keep the skin back so that I could continue cutting up our piggy. In surgery, while there is no "note-taker," per se, there are two nurses who play really important roles to help the surgeon out. One makes prep for the surgery, and the other is the "right-hand" person to the surgeon- what Helen and Zoe were doing. While I got my instruments myself, they aided me directly in surgery. It really helped to do dissections in teams because one person was job was to take notes- and these notes can be very useful in seeing how the whole body fits together. Also, there are several people there so that if say, I, get stuck, the others can help me and walk me through the process. In a real surgery, having several people there would definitely help because the jobs are compartmentalized and so each person only has to focus on his or her job. Also, in an emergency (say if the patient crashes) there are several people to help stabilize the patient.

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  4. I find the group work to be very helpful and beneficial to my learning. Robbie, as the head dissectionist, makes most of the cuts and is good at his job, while I assist him and tell him where to cut. As the assistant, I also help hold the pig still or in position so that Robbie can more easily make the cuts necessary. One important detail that I feel helps our team work well is that I have dissected a fetal pig before, so with this slight edge in experienced, it is helpful when we are unsure of what to do. Sonamtso makes a good scribe and makes sure we stay on task with what we are doing. However, we take turns at the different jobs, so this lets everyone have an opportunity to experience each role. On the second day of dissection, Christopher joined the group, and his presence and insight helped a lot as we made further investigations into each organ and identifying them. This type of group work is beneficial to my learning as we take turns observing and examining the different parts of the pig. I feel I get a more comprehensive understanding of the pig because my group mates may identify something I missed or pose interesting theories as to what each part is. In actual surgeries, the team concept would be very important to the patient because there are other people making sure the surgeon does not make a big mistake and risk the life of the patient. With more people, details are caught, so this could make for a smoother procedure and recovery for the patient. It also reassures the patient that his or her life does not rest in the hands of only one person but assistants and nurses that supervise and watch carefully over the procedure. The team dynamic is very important for ensuring the best possible procedure and result.

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  5. In my group (Carol and I), Carol definitely plays the role of the surgeon, doing most of the cutting, and I would be the closest to a scrub nurse, indicating where and how to cut. Having a group greatly increases the speed and efficiency with which we dissect our fetal pig. Rather than Carol attempting to hold the flaps of skin back and pinning them herself, I can quickly so, so she does not have to stop what she is concentrating on. As a team, we can identify the different organs in the body. Being in a group makes it much easier to dissect our pig as well as learn about its organs.

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  6. While the setup of the OR teams at Bellevue hospital are organized around what is necessary for the survival and recovery of the patient, our arrangement for dissecting Kosher, our adorable female ex-fetal pig, seems to be tailored to each group member’s temperament regarding dissecting poor Kosher. I, for example, have no interest in cutting up anything that is dead unless of course it is cooked nicely and coated with hot sauce. So for the dissection I handle the work of the scribe and note down the observations that the rest of the group makes. On the other end of the squeamish-spectrum is Ethan, who is so comfortable with Kosher’s corpse he handles most of the cutting and jokes around about Kosher’s organs. The middle ground between our positions is Tyler, the happy medium assistant cutter. Tyler will make some cuts into Kosher, but he to a larger extent examines and looks over the body after the cuts are made to discern what I should write down in our notes. He then coordinates with me to make sure I’m getting all the necessary information written down. This would make him sound like the leader of the group, but while he does help coordinate between Ethan and myself, our team is a little more decentralized that the traditional OR teams. Most of the decisions the group makes about what/where to cut, which organ we’re looking at and what to write down are the result of several opinions. For example, Ethan will confer with Tyler about how he should cut or remove tissue to expose an organ. The three of us sometimes will decide together what to write down for our notes on an organ. And even from my hands off position, I can give directions from our handout about how to properly make incisions for the dissection.
    This setup works perfectly for our situation as high school science students working on something that’s already dead, but it would not be a good structure to have in an OR with a live, ailing, human patient. Surgical teams need some sort of leader to make quick decisions to save a patient’s life. If my group was faced with a situation like that, we’d be too busy discussing our options to hear the patient flatlining. Also, our setup is also set up on our comfort with the pig fetus. For one thing, my squeamish self simply just does not belong in an OR. Ethan is primary cutter due to his total lack of squeamishness, and Tyler, having an interest in both the cutting and the anatomy of what we’re looking at, does some cutting but also helps with the notetaking as well. In an OR on the other hand, I think everyone in the OR would have to have no problems with just cutting up a patient and jumping right in.

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  7. I think the team dynamic of surgery is beneficial to learning. It would be much easier in surgery for one person to get distracted and make mistakes if he or she were responsible for more than one part of the surgery. If there is just one person who is fully focused on only one part of the surgery, it is much less likely that a critical problem will go untreated or unnoticed. Likewise, during dissection, it will be easier for students to learn if they have only a little bit of the project to be responsible for, like actually dissecting the pig or identifying body parts. In my group, cole would definitely be the surgeon, while I suppose I could consider myself the assistant. When the group comes together at the end of the project, each individual member will be very knowledgeable on his or her area of focus, and thus will be a good teacher to the others. The team system keeps an operation or in our case the dissection from becoming confusing or overwhelming.

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  8. The “team” concept is beneficial to my learning in the fetal pig dissection because it allows me, and everyone else on the team, to share our ideas and opinions. At times a member in our group may be unsure about what to do, this is when the other group members are able to help. 4 brains are definitely better than 1. We are able to bounce ideas off one another and figure out what is most important. Today Chris joined out group (Robbie, Annie and me) and to my surprise it was more helpful than I thought it would be. I figured that 4 people might be too many for one group and that our ideas might collide or that we would not all be able to participate, however it worked out wonderfully. Chris, as well as the rest of us, were able to all participate and have input. It is also beneficial because people can take a more focused job, like in the fetal pig dissection. Certain people were able to pay more attention to one job and make sure they were doing it well. If we didn’t have enough people, this might become complicated and the team (lets say of 2) would have to multitask taking their attention away from something important. The “patient” would benefit from this because it is likely that a group of surgeons is more probable to follow through on the surgery successfully. Although I have implied that more than one person operating or dissecting are better than one, there is definitely a number of people where it simply gets to be too many. This, in reverse, would not be beneficial to anyone.

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  9. While the team dynamic described by Nolen is fascinating and surely beneficial to the patient, I don’t really see it bearing too much resemblance to my pig dissection group. Within my group, Lena stays a good distance from Dwayne, I can slice and dice for about 45 seconds before the smell drives me away, and Reed can dissect the entire period without even diminishing his appetite for a bacon cheeseburger. If we were to make a surgery team, we would surely fail. Our comically poor group dynamic certainly does not aid the patient; Dwayne was a mess until the timely intervention of Ms Weisfield. We don’t really have defined group roles, Lena and I alternate as scribe and surgical instructor, and I will help Reed to pull back skin flaps and whatnot so we can properly cut Dwayne’s liver into bitesized little chunks. Neither Lena nor are really cut out (yes, it’s a pun.) for the surgery profession, so the whole ‘team’ concept is very necessary for the patient to be operated on at all. However, regarding the quality of the operation itself, the jury is still out. Hopefully Dwayne will survive his operation to live another day. If not, he surely will not be missed.

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  10. Well I, for one, am extremely grateful to be a part of an excellent fetal pig dissection group. I play the role of scrub nurse/note taker/squealer, and Reed is the surgeon. Michael assists Reed in the dissection in his rare moments of manliness. [Just kidding, Michael, you my homeboy] Anyway, without the dynamic in my specific group, I doubt we could successfully dissect the fetal pig, because without Reed's unsqueamish precision, Michael's sharp identifying eye for internal organs, and my unparalleled instruction-reading and gagging skills, we would not complete the necessary parts of the dissection. It is not only important to be able to cut open the pig, it is also important to do so correctly, as the instructional packet states, and once the pig's internal structures are revealed, it is of course crucial to correctly identify the different organs and their functions. If only one person were participating in the dissection, it would be easy to overlook a mistake, and this is the same as in the operating room. When people work together, they are more likely to perform at a higher level of precision.

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  11. The OR team described by Dr. Nolen consists of the head surgeon, who has the main responsibility of the operation, the circulating nurse, who prepares for the surgery and gets the instruments ready, the scrub nurse, who assists during the operation by handing the surgeon the right tools, and the anesthesiologist, who gives the patient anesthesia and makes sure they give the right one for the patient to stay alive and healthy as possible. The fetal pig dissection group positions correspond pretty well. I think the lead dissection-er would be the head surgeon, and the middle kind of position who helps the actual dissection would be the scrub nurse. The most hands-off position, the "observer/note taker" doesn't really correspond to any of these roles since during a real operation there isn't someone taking notes. In my group, Talon and Nelson did a great job evenly sharing the role of the lead dissection-er, and I was the note-taker. In terms of the actual dissection, having two people physically working on it definitely helped speed the process and make it go a lot cleaner because they could split the job of holding and opening the pig. I think in general the group dynamic was helpful for learning because we could figure out and review with each other what each organ was. (And for me personally, I don't think I would have been able to actually do the physical cutting/opening etc. of the dissection because I got too upset/panicked, so for me having a group was especially beneficial to learning it.) Having an operating group would benefit a human patient because more people working together means more people can catch mistakes, such as the scrub nurse who noticed the surgeon asked for the wrong tool, and overall it would make the process faster and safer for the patient because everyone does their own job that is necessary for the surgery to go smoothly.

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  12. As Manasi said our team is made up of herself, Helen and I, and each member has a different job in our fetal pig dissection. Manasi took on the role of head surgeon, and while our patient didn’t make it, she did an excellent job overall. Helen and I worked on taking notes, diagramming and as Manasi’s sidekicks. Having a team was very important to the success of our dissection, because at points we found that Manasi was unable to hold down the pigs limbs and cut on her own, one instance even called for all six of our hands to restrain the pig. Also having a third team member was very important for both Helen and I, because it is doubtful that either of us would be able cut the pig let alone carry out the experiment on our own. Having a team of three where each person carried out a different task helped us to take detailed notes while observing the pig and continuing to carry out the dissection. In a real surgery, while they would all have different roles from those of our dissection, they do use teams for similar reasons to ours. They need to be efficient and productive, and having clear-cut jobs helps to achieve this in addition to making for a neater surgery. If there were to be a team of people all trying to perform the same task during the surgery, things would quickly get confusing and messy, which is why defined jobs and a team together help to make for a better surgery.

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  13. Many people have commented on how surgery is aided by "team dynamic" and what not, and I agree that it is important to provide support for one another when carrying out delicate processes that, at least in the case of real surgery, have very important consequences if something goes wrong. I also agree that it is important for people to specialize in their tasks to that each person can focus on and perform specific vital functions. This, as nathan, my faithful partner, eloquently stated "keeps the dissection from becoming confusing or overwhelming." I think the main difference, however, between our little fetal pig groups and the surgery groups Nolen describes is that pretty much we are all "interns." I'm pretty sure that none of us have dissected fetal pigs before, and therefore the teamness comes into play as a support factor for one another as we all figure out what to do. I think out in the real world, and especially at the North Shore hospital that Nolen describes, these sorts of operating teams would definitely be comprised on different levels of experience. In this way the teamness most benefits the interns of less experienced residents who are using the guidance of the attending to gain confidence and practice. In this way I think that the dynamic in the groups is much more instructional, and although perhaps not necessarily beneficial to the current patient, definitely beneficial to future patients in need of surgeons with practice and experience.

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  14. My dissection team consisted of Corey, Doug, and myself. I did most of the cutting in our group, but we all took turns. When I was cutting, I had the emotional support of my two colleagues, and Doug was very helpful in identifying different parts. At one point, I was not sure if I was supposed to break open the mouth of our pig, however, Corey convinced me by showing me a diagram of the dissection. In the O.R., there are various roles such as the anesthesiologist and the scrub nurse who have specialized roles other than operating. While our group did not have the same roles as Dr. Nolen's group, I noticed that it was reassuring to have someone else watching because they would also be able to catch a mistake. The patient undergoing the operation benefits from this cohesiveness because such cooperation can shorten the length of a risky operation.

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  15. Well even though my Fetal Pig group isnt as qualified as the O.R. team in MOAS. We do benefit from the team concept and converse with each other on the proper course of action, etc. We use each other as checking systems to make sure that we are doing the right cuts and routines as well as identifying organs correctly. This seems to be quite similar to the team concept in MOAS. While each different person has a specific job, they all look out for each other and help each other complete their jobs sucessfully and with efficiency. For example, the scrub nurse stays prepared and one step ahead of the surgeon's movements to keep the operation flowing and efficient. Also, how doctor Nolen explains that he tells the anesthesiologist the blood color to help him identify an improper supply of blood. These team dynamics all help the operation move along thoroughly and the patient have a better chance of survival. This team dynamic is very important to the success of an operation. While a fetal pig does not really need to be watched for lack of oxygen or chance of dying, the dynamic is still important when performing the dissection.

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  17. Dr. Nolen describes the operation process only possible as a team cooperative effort. No single person can pull through a successful my him/herself. He also describes the surgery as parallel—at least metaphorically—to a war battle. It is interesting to see that a seasoned veteran (no pun intended) surgeon like Dr. Nolen views the surgery as a huge undertaking that requires a significant amount of resources and expertise that only team collaboration can pull off. Each team member focuses on their individual “project” or specialty in the body whether it is monitoring blood clotting or nerve activity (or in the case of the anesthesiologist, monitoring the entire body!). While dissecting a pig fetus is merely a lab project in the biology classroom, there are several ways in which team work is essential to students’ learning. Challen, the “scrub nurse,” helped me figure out where and how to make incisions on the pig fetus and afterwards helped me locate and identity various glands and organs throughout the body. Throughout the process, he also helped me pin down the skin to open up the chest and stomach cavity so that I could continue making any cuts. Overall, our team work helped us to move through the dissection with efficiency, allowing us to spend the majority of our time focusing on learning about the various organs and appendages of the fetal pig.

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  18. Having a team dissect the pig instead of each person dissecting their own pig really helped the learning process because it prevented us from making mistakes. Since there are two other people in the team, everyone can double check and make sure everything goes accordingly. For my group, with Abby and Talon, we split up with Talon and I both being sort of the "head surgeons" and Abby being the note taker. Because not everyone is into cutting the pig fetus or seeing the pig fetus, having a team to learn really helps because it allows those with fears to also be able to participate in a less contacting but still equally important role. Having a team also lets us identify structures easier. Although I can't really say that our team is too similar to an actual O.R. team because we had two surgeons and didn't really have a scrub nurse or an anesthesiologists (but then again, of course we wouldn't have an anesthesiologist in our team), the teams are also quite similar in the way that they work efficiently. With a patient being cut open, time is crucial and it is necessary to not waste any time at all. Having a team allows for maximum efficiency. In our team, Abby would read the instructions and we would execute them. In an O.R. team, a scrub nurse would hand the necessary tools to the head surgeon when he needed them so he would not have to go look for them. By having a team, we are able to move along quickly and focus on the main objective instead of having to worry about some side obstructions.

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  19. Our Fetal Pig group, while lacking in expertise per say, makes up for it in heart. Greg, a person who started off the lab with no desire to touch our deceased pally "Samantha," has quickly found his disecting groove and no longer hesitates to slice through the pericardium. Avram has less of a stomach for the dissection so he has been our note taker, masterfully recording down our observatinos and hypotheses, and I have been "red rover" essentially, ready to step where needed in the team, but with no specific function. Our group is certainly different than the Operating Team because we lack the clearly defined roles and experience. We seem to believe in a more "organized-chaos" approach to our pig's dissection. I am unsure of the benefit of having a team, because I have not recently done a dissection alone; however, I think it is helpful because it allows the possiblity of group members stepping away from the pig to recollect themselves or to stimulte intellectual debate with another group about their pig.

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  20. Our group seems to be quite different from an operating team that one would find at Bellevue Hospital, yet still just as essential. In our group, Greg and Sean do pretty much all of the cutting, since I have no stomach for dissection at all. Greg and Sean work as a team in opening up the pig and identifying the different organs. Their ability to work together and coordinate with me, the note taker, is essential to succesfully completing the operation. As note taker, my job is to take notes on the different organs of the fetal pig and coordinate with the operators as to where to cut. If we were working alone, the dissection process would be much more cumbersome. With a group, different tasks can be assigned to different people. This increases the speed and efficiency, something that is necessary when operating. However it also allows for the team to pull together their knowledge, creating a safer environment for the patient.

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  21. In a typical O.R. team, each person has a very distinct role, and acting within that role is imperative to a successful operation, because if they weren't patients could suffer. But in our team of dissectors, each of us does not really have a defined role, and none of them are truly imperative to our success. But in spite of not having defined roles, all that we need to get done, does get done and in that sense we are successful. I think that we work very well as a team and that it is a good exercise, because it helps us understand how that sort of thing works, but in much less stressful conditions. The cohesion of our team helps to counteract the cohesion of the various parts of Kosher, our delightful fetal pig.

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  22. The main similarity that I see between our fetal pig dissection and Nolen’s O.R. teams is the necessity of teamwork. I had never doubted that working with a team would be helpful, but I never quite understood its importance until I was part of an operation myself. My team members Alice and Elijah, our head dissector and the observer/recorder respectively, and I were somewhat tentative to make our first cuts in the pig. We made sure that we understood exactly what and where we were supposed to make the incision, and it took every one's consent to begin. As Alice made careful, precise incisions I held the pig as Elijah watched and assured us of our actions by always saying “So now we are doing… blah blah.” This system was quite effective, and we as a group were successful in being patient with one another as the dissection process continued. Every time we reached an important body part/organ we made sure that we all understood its position and function. Without this cooperation, the operation would not have been so successful. Alice specialized in the cuts, Elijah followed her with great attentiveness, and I did my best to aid Alice. Nolen’s description of the operations is similar in that he explains the importance of each person’s role, and he makes it clear that each role is essential to the team. The main difference that I see in our dissection is that of experience, of course, and also that we do not have to worry about killing the thing on which we are operating. Alice mentioned today that she was very slow in her dissections and how that was a bad thing. However, I praise her for her carefullness because I feel that our precision and slowness made the experience more real, because a normal operation has a much higher level of stress and more consequences. Although at times I do get a little bit queezy, I have found the experience quite interesting because of its realness, if that makes sense. I can only imagine what it would be like to operate on a living human being, and in this way, I am impressed by people like Dr. Nolen and his O.R. team.

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  23. I understand how/why the fetal pig dissection groups are considered similar to the OR team Nolen described, but i personally don't think that they are that similar. Our dissection group (Manasi, Zoe and I) work together, but i feel that we do not depend on each other like a real OR team does. The first day of the dissection Zoe and I would offer our help as much as we could. But the second day of dissection, getting progressively stinkier, I feel like we didn't help out as much (at least i didn't). The revolting smell kept me away from the pig, and consequently left Manasi to work alone (SORRY MANASI). Although i helped out a little, i feel like i didn't contribute that much to the team. I feel like Manasi would have been just as successful if i had been absent. On the other hand, the OR team that Nolen described was extremely dependent upon all the other members. In professional cases such as Nolen's OR team, every member makes a significant contribution to the success of the operation. The patients greatly benefit from this team work as it enables each member to focus on their expertise and there are more likely to be fewer mistakes.

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  24. Unlike Nolen's description, Doug, Chris and I did not have very specialized roles. Nobody took notes the whole time, cut the whole time, or directed the whole time. We all took turns doing what needed to be done, making sure everybody was comfortable with the situation. If the smell got too bad, I would bolt out of the room to let Doug or Chris take the majority of the action. If one person thought they knew how to do something, or do it better they could step in and do it. With any debates we were able to talk out to situation to an agreement about what to do. Even though we had no specialized jobs, the fact that we were all involved in the dissection helped us a lot. When one person was not sure what was what or how to do something, someone else was always paying such close attention that they could solve the problem. All in all, our group was very different from the OR team, but it still worked perfectly. Our dissection was beautiful and precise, and we learned what we needed to learn.

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  25. The group work was incredibly helpful to the learning process. We all took turns cutting, even Sonamtso, who said she didn't even want to cut in the beginning. Each person in the group had their own successes and their own knowledge that contributed to the entire project. On the first day, the lack of gloves is what kind of frightened us the most. I have done several dissections before but not without gloves on. Since we shared turns, we got to a see a variety of angles to see things form. Having a fourth member in our group really added to the compounded knowledge to the entire group. We were even able to get through some of the more disturbing parts of the dissection together, such as the removal of the eyelid. In the end, I think every one had a much better understanding of the owrkings of the organ systems. In a real surgery, every member would greatly add to the procedure. The expertise, the experience and knowledge of all participants would greatly increase the rate of success. Team work would also get procedures done a lot faster and people would not have to worry about being in the OR too long.

    As a side note, my brother showed me pictures of the head-royce dissection and we are all much more respectful. They were spelling things out with the small intestines.

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  26. Robbie, thank you for sharing that comment about the Head-Royce dissection. I think we all understood that even though the pigs were deceased, they still deserved to be treated with respect. I thought all of you guys did a good job of maintaining the dignity of the dissection.

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  27. I was quite glad of the group work, truthfully. I didn't mind at all doing the cutting, but I'm not nearly as meticulous a note-taker as lena, so that was very helpful. As well, a group allows for more discussion, and makes it easier to determine if you are correctly identifying an organ. Another helpful aspect of the group dynamic is that it allows for a more lighthearted feel in the project, which is nice, and enjoyable.
    I think that a the group was not as explicitly neccesary in our disection as it would be in a surgical proceedure, because we had the liberties of inprecision, experimentation, and time, whereas surgical opperators don't really have any of those things. For them, a team is neccesary to get everything done quickly and precisely, in order to help the patient as much as possible.

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  28. My team consisted of Abby, Nelson, and myself. Abby was the note-taker, and Nelson and I, both eager to disect the fetal pig, worked very well together as what would be considered the head surgeons. Having a team to disect the fetal pig was a lot more efficient in the learning process in my oppinoin. We worked faster hecause of the two head surgeons, and Abby, although she did not physically participate, was always there to make sure we were disecting the pig correctly. Being on a team help my confidence with the fetal pig anatomy. I know that if they had not have been there, I would have been second guessing myself a lot as two what was the identity and function of a particular organ. I feel that this is true in a professional work environment as well. Having certified doctors that agree with what you are doing further boosts up the confidence of the head surgeon. I feel the most important part of having a team is the support. It is true that each teamate brings their own specialties to the table(eg. a scrub nurse or an anesthesiologist) but I feel that having a group of support behind you in an operations reduces mistakes and second guessing. (Two heads are better than one complex)

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  29. I will never forget those few days of fetal pig dissection and intimate teamwork with Sean and Avram. Seriously. I cannot begin to describe how important being in a group was absolutely essential to my conquering, somewhat, my fear of dissection. Sean says so in his response... "Greg, a person who started off the lab with no desire to touch our deceased pally "Samantha," has quickly found his dissecting groove and no longer hesitates to slice through the pericardium." Sean definitely prodded me along at first, with his "Greg, want to cut through his skin" on the first day to his "Wanna get out his brain?" on the last. Avram was great backup, kind of hiding behind us and covering his nose, but performing the crucial job of note-taker. I'd like to thank Sean for his help, and encouragement throughout the process. I'm also sure our teamwork was beneficial to Samantha, our piggy.

    I'm sure she didn't mind.

    Oh yeah, Sean, could you get that video online sometime?

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  30. Ha! Our group was so disorganized and informal that the comparison with a operating room team is rather silly. We all poked and prodded and made suggestions, though most of the actual cutting was done by one or two people. Plus, our 'patient' was already dead, so there was less pressure to be professional and super careful (though of course we were!). But having a group as opposed to a solitary dissector made it easier to reach a consensus on the identity of the more ambiguous organs and membranes.

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