“This course allows you to use skills that you may already have but on a much finer level; the suture is smaller, the vessels are smaller, and your field is also smaller,” says Smruti Patel, MD, a resident physician in the Department of Neurosurgery.
Established in 1986, the Goodyear Lab is a premier teaching and research facility for residents, fellows, faculty, and practicing physicians. It provides a setting for neurosurgeons to learn and practice surgical anatomy and become skilled with microsurgical and endoscopic procedures including instrumentation.
“In a setting that is not in actual surgery, it allows us to practice our skills over and over again until we are comfortable,” Patel says. “It allows us to learn economy of motion when working in a small place, understand what kind of posture is necessary, and the ergonomics of surgery as well which is very important to consider in microsurgery.”
It’s technically demanding, says Zuccarello, because “you are working with tiny structures using small precision tools, all while looking through a microscope. It’s good practice for students to learn to carefully control their movements, or any natural tremors.”