Perform realistic simulation surgery and learn to reduce, fix, and close a fractured bone with your own hands.

Get real practical experience in basic surgical principles by performing realistic simulation surgery. You’ll practice open and closed reduction methods, fix a fractured long bone, and suture the surgical wound in layers, all at home or wherever you are. This hands-on, self-paced online course is paired with The Apprentice Doctor® Fracture Reduction Kit, which includes the instruments and items you need.

What you’ll be able to do

• Prepare a sterile surgical field and identify common surgical landmarks
• Practice sharps safety and discard medical waste and sharps properly
• Perform surgical retraction and blunt dissection
• Reduce and fix a fracture
• Place a bone plate with monocortical and bicortical screws
• Close (suture) a surgical wound and apply a dressing

What’s inside the course

1. Foundational skills

Safety first, then aseptic and barrier technique: hand hygiene, gloving, and changing into OR attire, plus the surgical knot tying and suturing (square and surgeon’s knots, interrupted and subcutaneous sutures) you’ll use later.

2. Fracture reduction theory

The human skeletal system, the types of long-bone fractures, non-invasive and invasive fixation methods, the biological, biomechanical, and biomaterial considerations behind them, and the common complications.

3. Practical orthopedic projects

The hands-on core, on the simulation kit:

• Emergency management of a fracture
• Closed reduction using casts, and removing a cast
• Open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) with monocortical and bicortical screws
• ORIF of comminuted and segmental fractures
• Removing plates and screws, and fixation using Sawbones®

4. Final considerations

Radiographic considerations, clinical case studies, a look at a career in orthopedic surgery, and theory and practical final assessments.

Who should enroll

For premed and medical students considering surgery as a specialty or wanting practical insight into the skeletal system, plus paramedics and athletic trainers.

Setting

Online and self-paced.

Duration

About 30 hours, including the practical projects.

We recommend you don’t rush it. Keep to about three hours a day so each topic has time to settle. With full-time study you could finish in under a week, but spacing it out works better for what you actually remember. Before each session, take a few minutes to review the previous day’s work.

Requirements and instructions

— Register with Apprentice Doctor Academy

— Enroll in the course

— Get the Simulation Kit (optional, but you’ll need it to complete the practical projects and practice the techniques you learn)

Certified credits

Counts as the equivalent of thirty shadowing hours.

One half academic credit per 80 hours of courses taken. Transcript available upon request.

Warnings

– The Apprentice Doctor® Fracture Reduction Course and accompanying Simulation Kit (including all items and instruments in the kit) are for education and training only. No instrument or item may be used in a real clinical setting, emergency or otherwise.

– Without a formal medical qualification, using these techniques on the public can expose you to medico-legal action.

– The surgical gloves contain latex. Latex-free gloves are available on request.

– The course and kit suit students aged 15 and older. Adult supervision is recommended for students under 18.

Click here to order your Apprentice Doctor® Fracture Reduction Kit