Playdough surgery

February 27, 2023 12:57 PM

Curious about what exactly goes on during a surgical procedure but too squeamish to watch a video of the real thing? Doctor/Youtuber TheBreakfasteur (and her 3-year old assistant) has you covered with her Playdough Surgery series. Total knee replacement. Hernia repair. Cochlear implant. Coronary artery bypass.
posted by gottabefunky (38 comments total)

I only watched the first one so far but feel it was both more and less disturbing than a non-PlayDough version. Can't tell it the music helped or hindered.

Thanks for the hookup!
posted by dobbs at 1:13 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

YAY! wmswife is thinking about this procedure and this will help her with the visual.
posted by wmo at 1:21 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I only watched the knee cap and it was still horrifying. Somehow the cute presence of a little kid made it somehow better and worse.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 1:22 PM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Her assistant’s comments at the start of the lumpectomy video, made me laugh.
posted by rongorongo at 1:25 PM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

I started with the heart one and that was great. The knee one, however, I am still too squeamish for, even with Play-Doh.
posted by aubilenon at 1:30 PM on February 27, 2023

These are amazing!
posted by Kabanos at 1:38 PM on February 27, 2023

I watched that knee replacement play-dough video, and it was intriguing! So I then proceeded to watch vide of an actual knee replacement, and the accuracy of the play-dough was really stunning. Also, I'm not afraid of blood anymore?
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:39 PM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

This is really incredible. Fascinating idea and presentation.

That kid is either going to grow up and win a Nobel Prize in medicine or become a director of body horror films. Or maybe both.
posted by gwint at 1:39 PM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

The kid notices that there is some anatomy missing during the Open Apendectomy procedure.
posted by Kabanos at 1:44 PM on February 27, 2023

I can't do the knee. I love these, but not the knee. "Try to stay on the line as much as possible." Kid makes multiple slashes with the plastic scalpel near, but not on, the line. Deep, horrifying flaying of play doh. Tendon snipping. And then. The toy bone saw!

I saw a squamous cell carcinoma taken off a nose and the nose reconstructed with forehead skin, though, and it was amazing. And I saw the lumpectomy. My biggest fear in life, now, is that this surgeon is going to be crushed if the kid grows up and wants to be a graphic designer or something. Please, please grow up to be a surgeon, kid. Even if there's a lot more blood and even if none of the tumors you excise turn out to be toy tractors.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:45 PM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

I love this!!
And I would have loved it even more as a child. For a lot of complicated reasons, my family would really have liked me to be a surgeon, and there were definitely aspects of it I found interesting. This could have tilted me.
posted by mumimor at 2:05 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

My best friend had to have a couple of stents put in this month. They kept him awake during the procedures. I was nopenopenopenopeNOPE!!! when he told me that. He was drugged, of course, but freaking awake while the doc is driving around in his arteries, starting at the groin and ending up at the heart. I don’t think there are adequate supplies of drugs to keep me awake and not freaking-the-fuck-out.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:11 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

The strabismus surgery video answers the question "What if Un Chien Andalou, but Playdough?" The cataract one is a little more abstract.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:15 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I was stabbed in the arm and they needed to pump dye into the area to see how close the cut was to the ulnar nerve. They made a small incision in my groin and sent the tube up from there. I was drugged up but I watched the whole thing on a fluoroscope screen. The part where the end of the tube would get caught up, inside me, and have to be backed up a bit got me queasy.

The surgeon holding pressure on the incision, on my groin, until it was safe to let go, made me both uncomfortable and giggly. Thanks morphine.
posted by Splunge at 2:18 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

As someone who will soon be undergoing total knee replacement, I found that video equally delightful and disturbing. It was, as grumpybear69 says, rather unnervingly similar to aspects of the one video I've seen of the actual surgery (although much squishier, which definitely upped the unnervingness). Favorite bit: "Yay! Hammering!" Very much in the spirit of the real-life surgery video, which at times had a definite air of carpentry.
posted by Kat Allison at 2:22 PM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Kat Allison, I came across these videos through a TKR Facebook group--I just had one 2 weeks ago. Simply learning that the doctor moves the knee through its entire range of motion on the operating table, to make sure everything's in place, made me go green. (I did find it amazing that it only took 90 minutes, and at 11:30 am was my surgeon's third of the day.)
posted by gottabefunky at 2:30 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yes! I saw the real-life surgery film a long time ago, and all I really remember of it is guys standing around the table, getting in there with the tools, going " voopah! voopah! *scrape scrape* BAM BAM BAM" and then picking the lower leg up and cranking it vigorously back and forth, like someone testing out a creaky hinge, and then back to the "voopah! *scrape scrape* BAM".

Also, thanks for linking that Facebook group -- I'm not much of a FB person, but this might actually be something I'd join.
posted by Kat Allison at 2:37 PM on February 27, 2023

Very impressive, but add me to the "better, yet worse" crowd. It's like they're just doing the surgery on a very grainy person!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:52 PM on February 27, 2023

just FYI: I was NOT drugged when they put my stent in, felt weird when it initially went in, when they were 'driving around' I felt nothing - just a very professional team working together trying to stay as far away from the xray as possible (except for the doctor dressed in lead). I could easily have walked away from it.

My father (who died from his heart attack) was due for a bypass at roughly the same age, so much more invasive than an hour awake getting a stent put in, and a couple of nights in hospital
posted by mbo at 2:59 PM on February 27, 2023

If I ever get a knee replacement, they're going to wonder why I insist that a three-year-old not help with the operation.
posted by zompist at 3:01 PM on February 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

BTW in my case they came in through my wrist, though a heavily tattooed guy showed up that morning to shave my groin, presumably just in case, but who knows, maybe he was just some guy who wandered in off the street
posted by mbo at 3:01 PM on February 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

I'm pretty certain that that's live video of my cataract surgery. It's exactly how I remember it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:31 PM on February 27, 2023

Here to say that's how the cochlear implant went. I wasn't awake, mind you, when they stuck a wire horizontally into my head. I did learn a few things, including I've got some piece of my skull missing now.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 3:52 PM on February 27, 2023

I got kind of excited to see one for a carotid endarterectomy (since I have plenty of patients who go through them) but the unexpected extra -ectomy was not going to help my teaching.

I am actually perfectly OK not seeing a clay version of my own craniectomy, though. Or really any brain areas. Too squishy in real life.
posted by cobaltnine at 3:58 PM on February 27, 2023

These are great! I am a cochlear implant recipient and I'm not sure I would have wanted to see all this before my surgery (the folding-the-ear-back part, eww). But my partner and I did get to see a live cochlear surgery (via video connected to the surgeon's scope) after I had my surgery and it was really interesting and the play dough version is pretty spot-on, if a little less elegant. It does help to explain why my post-surgery scalp is so lumpy.
posted by amusebuche at 4:19 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Also, I'm not afraid of blood anymore

I had to have my bleeding Play-Doh blessed by a priest.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:54 PM on February 27, 2023

This is perfectly timed. A relative of mine is being assessed as a candidate for cochlear implant, and now, thanks to this video, I know what the surgery entails! Good to know that it is accurate, amusebuche and Jubal Kessler.

I did laugh at the comments at the beginning of the lumpectomy. “Why are you laughing, Mommy?”
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 5:03 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

What a wonderfully creative application of Play-Doh! Still doesn't make me feel better about the fact that this playset exists though.
posted by Rora at 5:52 PM on February 27, 2023

Wow, I'm phobic/PTSD traumatized* around medical stuff and I was going to watch these, but just reading the thread has been mildly triggering, so better nope out. Thanks for posting them though!

* Diagnosed in the 70s with phobia of hypodermic needles, but while I haven't had a formal rediagnosis, I've been told that I almost certainly meet criteria for PTSD for medical trauma now as part of assessment for other issues.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:56 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Well, this has cursed my YouTube algorithm. It was great, though.
posted by Comet Bug at 7:51 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

the nose reconstructed with forehead skin

I can’t be the only one who read foreskin briefly and tried to figure out the Pinocchio joke.
posted by Glinn at 8:42 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Those are awesome, but somehow more disturbing than watching the real thing. I had to cringe at the adult smoothing over the 'skin' to fix it after the child cut in the wrong place!
posted by dg at 11:12 PM on February 27, 2023

The possibility of a YouTube channel where surgeons with state of the art equipment to construct flesh and blood versions of “daddy” and “doggie” … remains open.
posted by rongorongo at 3:11 AM on February 28, 2023

The teratoma dissection (part 2 of the ovarian cystectomy) was really something, and she teaches you how to make your own teratoma the fun way.
posted by Westringia F. at 4:24 AM on February 28, 2023

I can’t be the only one who read foreskin briefly and tried to figure out the Pinocchio joke

Are you telling me a fib, or are you just happy to see me?



Sorry, too on-the-nose?
posted by nickmark at 5:18 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

With you gentlyepigrams…

As I sit in the doctor’s office waiting to talk to the Hematologist about my clumpy blood.
posted by Windopaene at 1:28 PM on February 28, 2023

Just found this now (thanks popular page!) and this is amazing. I'm headed into brain surgery later this month and it made me feel equally reassured and panicked at the same time (I watched the aneurysm video). But i'm pretty confident my surgeon has better skull cutting skills than a 3 year old, so that's good...

And since we're talking about it, as prep for this surgery I've had 2 cerebral angiograms - the same procedure discussed above where the camera goes from your groin the heart? It can also go allll the way up to your brain. And yes, you're awake. Very trippy seeing your brain arteries (and where they're messed up!) on two giant big screens. And yes, when its almost done making small talk with the doc who got the job of holding pressure on your groin for 10 minutes (with the giant timer also in view) to make sure the incision clots properly was very surreal...
posted by cgg at 7:38 AM on March 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

I had both knees replaced--the doctor said don't watch YouTube videos of the surgery. Now I know why.
posted by Nosey Mrs. Rat at 3:23 PM on March 4, 2023