The baseball model: post-WWII surgeons as young as age 18?

And yes, it would be the feature of such a system, and not a bug, that a non-surgeon almost always decides when an operation is necessary or highly helpful.
 
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I think this is particularly appropriate for today, Tues. Oct. 2, 2018, since tonight is the start of the playoffs for professional American baseball. Yesterday, as interesting as it was, was merely game 163 of the regular season.

Baseball has talented, high-performing young people supervised and managed by older, seasoned baseball people.
 
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In OTL, the 1910 Flexner Report brought big changes to U.S. medical training and practice.

As an ATL, I'm envisioning a post-WWII committee also bringing big changes, but of a different sort. The committee looks at such factors as the experience of rather minimally trained medics during the war, and also the fact that the country was becoming richer perhaps faster than you could realistically train doctors the standard way for the anticipated demand.

And every once in the while, a committee charged with issuing recommendations does come up with radical proposals.
 
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heterotopic102004.jpg


Heterotopic Heart Transplant (this is rare)

And this is why you want to hire and train highly dexterous persons to be surgeons, as long as they're merely good enough in other areas.
 
Two hearts are better than one for toddler who undergoes historic operation

Stanford Medicine News Center, Oct. 21, 2004

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-n...toddler-who-undergoes-historic-operation.html

' . . . called a heterotopic or “piggyback” heart transplant . . . '

' . . . Double hearts are a good choice for patients whose heart problems cause extremely high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery . . . '

' . . . From 1997 to 2001, eight children received heterotopic heart transplants in the United States. . . '
So, it's rare, but it's the thing. There really is the occasionally human being walking around with two hearts in their chest.
 
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24-year-old Luis Severino is the starting pitching for the New York Yankees for tonight's AL winner-take-all Wildcard Game (Weds. Oct 3, 2018). Per the medical model, I guess he would have been required to study classroom physics for 6 more years after high school ? ! ? :p (which he might be excellent at, but it's not what he's best at right now)

* I've read that in their third year "clinical rotations," medical students start learning some actual practical skills, around age 24 for many of them.
 
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In OTL, the 1910 Flexner Report brought big changes to U.S. medical training and practice.

As an ATL, I'm envisioning a post-WWII committee also bringing big changes, but of a different sort. The committee looks at such factors as the experience of rather minimally trained medics during the war, and also the fact that the country was becoming richer perhaps faster than you could realistically train doctors the standard way for the anticipated demand.

And every once in the while, a committee charged with issuing recommendations does come up with radical proposals.
We have minimally trained "medics" now, they're called EMT's...so, what's your point/proposal? Are we supposed to believe that high school grads with decent grades and better than average reactions/fine motor skills go off to a Medical JC and graduate in 2 years with an Associates Degree in Surgery?
 
I think you would need to butterfly the Spanish Flu in America, as it essentially built the scientific medical establishment through the sheer weight of the health crisis and Dr Edward Welch’s work in particular.

Even today, surgeons are a very different breed than most other doctors.

Historically, it was the difference between the guy who knew what he could and couldn’t do (regardless of whether he knew the scientific why of the time) and was generally competent, if limited, vs the presumptuous fool who had high minded theories and was quite good at killing his patients (bloodletters).

Surgery is an inherently practical, technical form of the healing arts, and it’s quite conceivable to see skilled young surgeons learning the why on the job rather than in a succession of classrooms.

The nurse practitioner is a similar analogue in non-surgical medicine, where a greater emphasis on practical experience and knowledge is found.

The surgeon’s going to take out that skin growth or tumor. The doctor might decide that your atypically long bout of the flu is something much worse and prescribe something dangerous or extreme.
 
. . Are we supposed to believe that high school grads with decent grades and better than average reactions/fine motor skills go off to a Medical JC and graduate in 2 years with an Associates Degree in Surgery?
Let's say top 20% in fine motor skills. And for the simpler operations, I'm thinking could be in there doing the operation within six months.

20% would be the main path for surgeons, but there'd be other paths for those who want it a lot and are willing to prove it in other ways. I do believe in multi-path.
 


Justin Verlander of my Houston Astros. Starting about 1:10 Houston time today (Friday, Oct. 5, 2018)

He's now about 35. And in the system being explored here, would have been a surgeon doing progressively more difficult operations for about the last 17 years. (and his best years would not have been wasted sitting in a classroom)

PS The game is long, might even see me multi-task a little.
 
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. . . The surgeon’s going to take out that skin growth or tumor. The doctor might decide that your atypically . . .
And that's kind of the gist of the it. Surgeons aren't necessarily doctors in this system. Surgeons often progress to becoming doctors sometime between their late 20s and early 40s, but it's just as "normal" for them to not to. In fact, there's even a career designation of "master surgeon."

And just like in financial matters where an accountant or lawyer does not oversee a transaction they also benefit from, a surgeon doesn't sign off on his or her own operation, unless it's a clear emergency which is later reviewed.
 
In the legal world you have this where some incredible lawyers (especially in litigation) cut their teeth as legal assistants and paralegals, go to law school in the late 30s or early 40s and rocket up.
 

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I am actually rather stunned by this. While I absolutely accept that professional athletes have a God given gift well beyond the average person that does not translate, in any way, into the sort of knowledge it requires to be a surgeon. Yes some 18 year olds have exceptional motor skills, but can you even get a 12 year old to understand half the information a physician needs to acquire, even if you see surgeons as more highly paid meat-cutters (which BTW is entirely untrue) I would point out that the number of 18 year old highly trained butchers is fairly close to zero.

Perhaps the best way to ask this question is this: would you rather have an 18 year old with maybe two years of training, and the maturity if the average 18 year old or a 28 (or 38) yer old who has gone through the pressure cooker of STEM undergrad, Medical School, and Residency with all the knowledge acquired during all that schooling perform life or death surgery on the individual you love most on this earth?

Fairly sure I know how 99% of the population is going to answer.
 
I am actually rather stunned by this. While I absolutely accept that professional athletes have a God given gift well beyond the average person that does not translate, in any way, into the sort of knowledge it requires to be a surgeon. Yes some 18 year olds have exceptional motor skills, but can you even get a 12 year old to understand half the information a physician needs to acquire, even if you see surgeons as more highly paid meat-cutters (which BTW is entirely untrue) I would point out that the number of 18 year old highly trained butchers is fairly close to zero.

Perhaps the best way to ask this question is this: would you rather have an 18 year old with maybe two years of training, and the maturity if the average 18 year old or a 28 (or 38) yer old who has gone through the pressure cooker of STEM undergrad, Medical School, and Residency with all the knowledge acquired during all that schooling perform life or death surgery on the individual you love most on this earth?

Fairly sure I know how 99% of the population is going to answer.
Count me in the 99%ers, big guy...
 
Just an aside...having the giggles over the mental picture of 5th graders trading "surgery cards". The plastic surgeons with all the breast implants would be the most sought out, I'm sure.
 
I am actually rather stunned by this. While I absolutely accept that professional athletes have a God given gift well beyond the average person that does not translate, in any way, into the sort of knowledge it requires to be a surgeon. Yes some 18 year olds have exceptional motor skills, but can you even get a 12 year old to understand half the information a physician needs to acquire, even if you see surgeons as more highly paid meat-cutters (which BTW is entirely untrue) I would point out that the number of 18 year old highly trained butchers is fairly close to zero.

Perhaps the best way to ask this question is this: would you rather have an 18 year old with maybe two years of training, and the maturity if the average 18 year old or a 28 (or 38) yer old who has gone through the pressure cooker of STEM undergrad, Medical School, and Residency with all the knowledge acquired during all that schooling perform life or death surgery on the individual you love most on this earth?

Fairly sure I know how 99% of the population is going to answer.

Not only that, but surgery is as much art as technique. There is a lot of judgment and knowledge involved in most operations and the ever-present possibility that something goes awry or not as expected. Experience and knowledge matters here sometimes more than adept technique and good motor skills. For these reasons, I'd prefer the crusty old surgeon who knows what they are doing over the 18-year-old who cuts well but doesn't understand the whole thing.
 
I think something that’s being missed here is that surgery is on a scale of difficulty.

You start with suspicious but early moles and draining abscesses after watching a master surgeon for some time. Then you progress to easier internal surgeries or repairing non-serious broken bones. It’s still only the master surgeon who’s working transplants and trauma.

Nobody’s saying you give an 18 year old some anyeursm burst to fix. It’s saying the system for surgeons would be master craftsmen-type education.
 
. . . would you rather have an 18 year old with maybe two years of training, and the maturity if the average 18 year old or a 28 (or 38) yer old who has gone through the pressure cooker of STEM undergrad, Medical School, and Residency . . .
You put it that way, especially since we both know that 28-, 29-,or 30-year old resident is seriously sleep deprived.

I think I might have the 18-year-old who's coached and supported and treated decently! And in which someone else is making the decision on whether surgery is helpful enough to be worth the risks.
 
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