Roger began with his experience, as a trauma surgeon and a family practitioner. He gave an interesting view of medical practitioners as concerned with process and procedure, eg consultations as process, where consultations could be analysed via simulations – hence simulated patients. Here he shifted laterally to frames and kinship. Medicine is a frame where others are doctors; then he saw himself more broadly as a clinician, dealing with, inter alia, embodied knowledge that’s hard to put into words. He cited the example of surgical palpation and compared it with the way that palpation in the context of lute-making could occur. He took the example of sewing (see video here) and how his (Roger’s) sewing was different from that of a master tailor. Fascinating point – sewing as occurring within a cultural and empirical context. He then cited his work taking simulated patients to create the living context of sewing, where latex parts are put onto simulated patients.
He showed ways in which he used simulation to open up the world of surgery, eg in ‘Thinking with your hands‘ – an event that brought together people who worked with their hands, in craftsmanship, etc. Eg the concept and idea of incision. Fascinating, because he’s taking into account the semiotic context, as Gunther Kress has described it (Roger’s idea…). He finished up with two simulation projects – child with meningitis, and cardiac clinic. In each he explored the contexts, roles, actions, consequences, following on from his idea of how simulation involves intensification, abstraction and representation within medical contexts. Great introduction to the theory and practice of simulation in medical education, showing moments in a pathway of care. In other words patients are expert through experience, as experts are expert through expertise – reciprocal illumination.