I recently completed the Indiana University Basic Microsurgical Course, an absolute highlight of my transitional year residency at IU Health Methodist Hospital. During the three-day course, I was taught one-on-one by a highly skilled plastic surgeon to perform microsurgical vessel anastomosis of a rat femoral artery and vein. While my future career as an eye surgeon makes it highly unlikely that I will be performing vessel anastomosis, the microsurgical course I completed helped me become more comfortable operating under the microscope, an extremely difficult skill necessary to intraocular surgery.
Prior to the course I spent several hours attempting to find resources to learn the anastomosis procedure to be able to maximize my time during the course to practice microsurgery instead of struggling to learn the basics of vessel anastomosis. I found extremely limited resources to teach me what I wanted to know, and ultimately decided that I would create a resource for future physicians and students to learn the basics of microsurgery and the steps of rat femoral artery and vein anastomosis.
Introduction to Microsurgery Part 1 includes:
– History of microsurgery
– Basic principles of vessel repair
– Microsurgical instrumentation
Introduction to Microsurgery Part 2 includes:
– Overview of the steps to vessel anastomosis
– Demonstration of the anastomosis procedure
PDF files of the text for this course are available at the links below:
Introduction to Microsurgery Part 1
Introduction to Microsurgery Part 2
Special thanks to Itsso Design for the fantastic video production, design, and animation.
Please let me know if you found these videos beneficial by leaving your comments below or in the comments section of the YouTube video. Thanks!
