What makes a good surgeon? Video analysis rates suturing skills

Nice and steady does it. A video analysis system uses motion tracking and machine learning to assess how good surgeons are at suturing a wound. "Different surgeons all have different styles of suturing," says Aneeq Zia at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, whose team developed the system. The team first captured footage of 41 surgeons and nurses practising their suturing and knot-tying skills on foam boards. Participants also wore an accelerometer on each hand to capture motion data, and a clinician then watched the videos and rated each person's skills.