Surgeon blames phones for students' lack of hand skills

Too much smartphone use and not enough time developing hand skills is creating a generation of medical students who lack the dexterity to complete surgical training, a noted UK surgeon says. 

Professor Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College London, says he has seen a concerning decline in  students’ manual aptitude over the past decade. 

“It is important and an increasingly urgent issue," Professor Kneebone is reported as saying on BBC News. 

"It is a concern of mine and my scientific colleagues that whereas in the past you could make the assumption that students would leave school able to do certain practical things — cutting things out, making things — that is no longer the case.

Medical students may be endowed academically, but their manual dexterity is slipping, and they’re less able than previous peers to cut, sew or stitch