Departments of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Am Surg. 2023 Nov;89(11):4835-4841. doi: 10.1177/00031348231172164. Epub 2023 May 6.
Historically, surgical instruments were designed by men for male surgeons. Although instrumentation has changed with the changing paradigms of surgery, it has failed to adapt to the changing surgical workforce. Almost 30% of surgeons are female and nearly 90% of surveyed female surgeons report poor instrument design and associated musculoskeletal injuries from use. Understanding the current state of handheld surgical instrument design, published literature was reviewed, surgical instrument collections were contacted, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark databases were queried to identify public patents and pre-granted applications of female inventors of handheld surgical instruments. Twenty-five female inventors were identified from published literature and 1551 unique females hold patents. This number pales when the denominator of male inventors is considered. Hence, to address the female surgeon's lack of instrumentation and design, there is a critical need for participatory ergonomics whereby both the female surgeon and engineer collaborate on design.
从历史上看，外科手术器械是由男性为男性外科医生设计的。尽管器械随着手术模式的变化而发生了变化，但它未能适应不断变化的外科劳动力。近 30%的外科医生是女性，近 90%接受调查的女性外科医生报告说，器械设计不佳，使用过程中与肌肉骨骼损伤有关。为了了解当前手持外科器械设计的情况，我们查阅了已发表的文献，联系了外科器械收藏机构，并查询了美国专利和商标数据库，以确定女性手持外科器械发明者的公开专利和预先授予的申请。我们从已发表的文献中确定了 25 名女性发明者，而 1551 名独特的女性拥有专利。当考虑到男性发明者的分母时，这个数字就相形见绌了。因此，为了解决女性外科医生缺乏器械和设计的问题，迫切需要参与式人体工程学，让女性外科医生和工程师共同参与设计。
