THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 18, 1994 TAG: 9411160124
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 4L EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, correspondent
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
When the dozen members of the school system's only sports medicine class for students filed into a biology lab at First Colonial High School recently they weren't quite prepared for what was going to happen.
All that they knew for sure was that Virginia Beach orthopedist Sandra Glasson was going to be the guest speaker and that at least part of the discussion would have to do with the fine art of suturing.
The students, who come from all over the city to attend the after-school class, listened intently as Glasson began her presentation.
``The hardest part of becoming a doctor,'' she told them, ``is getting into medical school.''
With the preliminaries taken care of, Glasson switched gears. ``We're going to learn to suture the same way medical students do,'' she told the class as she pulled first one than another and another package of pigs' ears from a grocery bag.
``We don't have any squeamish stomachs in here, do we?'' she asked with a grin.
There was dead silence for a moment, then a murmured ``Oh, God.''.
The class was actually going to be suturing things that had, until a recent trip to a nearby packing plant, been alive.
First, however, there was some operating room protocol to be observed. With instructions from Glasson and help from activities director Mike McGee and athletic training coordinator Jen Birnstein, the youngsters donned the requisite booties, caps, gowns, gloves and masks.
``Next time I'll bring a scrub nurse with me,'' Glasson said as she tried to get gloves onto a student whose hands looked more suitable for passing footballs than tying fine knots.
``I know it's basic,'' Birnstein admonished as she distributed scalpels so that the students could make incisions on which to practice, ``but remember, these things are sharp.''
For the next 40 minutes the class hunched intently over the pigs' ears as they tried their hands at a variety of suturing techniques.
``I thought it would be disgusting, but it's not,'' First Colonial student Nikki Bjorken admitted as she gingerly joined the two edges of the incision she had made earlier.
Matthew Sachs of Kempsville High School had a few thoughts of his own on the subject. ``If I've learned anything from suturing a pig's ear,'' he said, ``it's that I don't want to be a veterinarian.''
According to McGee, many of the students in the class are considering careers in medicine.
``We wanted them to see exactly how a physician does things,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by Jo-Ann Clegg
Gerlyn Perlas, a student at Princess Anne High School, cuts the
thread Dr. Sharon Glasson.
Dr. Sharon Glasson, an orthopedist, shows students how to do a
suture using a pig's ear.
by CNB