Garment enhances training for medical students

Published On: December 1, 2008

Artist Karen Fleming, University of Ulster, and scientist John McLachlan, Durham University, developed the Incision Gown, a garment designed to provide medical students with information on where operation incisions are made, and a sense of the meaning of operations for the patient. It’s worn and studied by medical students during their training to enhance their technical and emotional understanding of what will happen to their patients on the operating table.

The gown is shaped like the familiar surgical gown, but has zippers on major surgical incision sites named on the cloth, alongside laparoscopic and peritoneal catheter insertion points. Unzipping the incisions reveals deeper layers corresponding to sequential muscle and tissue layers; the silk and rubber echoes the texture of human muscles and flesh, making it a unique teaching tool that gives much more emotional impact than hard plastic models of the human body

SOURCE http://news.ulster.ac.uk/releases/2008/3581.html