title: Influence of medical students' past experiences and innate dexterity on suturing performance.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Medical students often cite their ability to excel at technical tasks as justification for choosing surgery as a career path. We sought to investigate how medical students' dexterity skills and past experiences correlated with suturing performance.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixty-four 3rd-year medical students were surveyed about previous experiences that involved manual dexterity. Technical skills were then measured using a validated test of manual dexterity and subcuticular closure of a pig's foot incision. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients determined correlation between variables.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Previous experiences, self-assessment of dexterity, prior suturing, and current interest in surgery did not significantly correlate with manual dexterity or suturing skill scores. Innate manual dexterity score was the only significant correlating factor to suture skill score (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient = .336; P = .007).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Innate manual dexterity skills are predictive of initial surgical suturing performance regardless of past student experiences. Interventions aimed at improving early surgical technique should be optimally focused on dexterity training.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA. Electronic address: davhughe@umich.edu.
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Forest
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Rosangela
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Foitl
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chao
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D002983:Clinical Competence; D005260:Female; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D013337:Students, Medical; D013536:Suture Techniques; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Dexterity; Medical student; Suturing skill