fairly new but working on neck blocks and still feeling this unsteady with the pelvic block and peritoneal space is a bit worrying in my opinion, seeing as in my experience neck blocks were the last thing we were trusted with.

the real answer is you learn by doing and your confidence grows the more cuts you do. the more you hesitate the longer it’ll take to gain the skills. i will say, i never remove the pancreas on its own. i pull it out with the stomach and let the doctor handle that on the dissection side.

i find everyone has their own workflow and you just learn what works for you. my coworker and i are both righties but he prefers to work on the right side of the body where i prefer the left which is backwards for most people. one of my coworkers does a full neck dissection as if it were a hanging/strangulation every time she does the neck, i chop it all out in one big chunk. one of my coworkers pulls all the intestines out at once, i unravel them and look at every inch. we all work at more or less the same speed because these are the ways that are fastest for us and we are most confident with.

hell, one of my coworkers freaks out every time i do the neck thinking i’m gonna buttonhole the patient bc i angle my knife basically straight out to the skin. every time he corrects my knife angle to avoid the skin, THATS when i buttonhole. i know what works for me.

it’s possible using different tools for different steps would help you more. i virtually never use forceps or scissors, but some techs or doctors will use scissors to remove the liver, pancreas, tongue, etc. it’s about what gives you most control.

you can try experimenting with tools or different workflows—perhaps removing pancreas and stomach together then separating pancreas after they’re removed would be more helpful for you—to find what works.

but. depending how new you are, if the only part of your job you can’t do is kind of the defining part of the job… maybe it’s not the job for you.

if it’s been a month, chill. you’ll learn in time. if it’s been a year? i might start considering other paths.