Motion Study of Gilbreths in Surgery Frank and Lillian Gilbreth are best-known for their motion study on bricklaying. However they did many other studies on various areas. They have motion studies for athletes, pianists , book keepers and fencers. All of these people were photographed when they were in action. Then those actions were divided into small micro motions to observe the unnecessary movements to eliminate. Surgeons were those people that Gilbreths studied on to improve the surgical operations by eliminating the unnecessary motions. Back in the days, the operations were taking so long because the doctors were trying to find the surgical instruments while operating. They had to stop and look for the equipment which was needed for the next action. Additionally, surgical practices and the instruments varied in the country which resulted incompetence. Gilbreths thought that the scientific management in industry can be applied to the surgical area and they decided to conduct a motion study in this area. Gilbreths observed the surgeons while they were doing the operation and saw that seeking for the surgical instrument took a great amount of time for surgeons that they always needed to stop for some time to get the next equipment. However, Gilbreths had hard time to convince the surgeons to get permission from them to attend their operations because Gilbreths needed to observe them. At first surgeons seemed willing to have Gilbreths in their surgical operations but when they said that the observation was being done to find motion similarities between the surgeons, bricklayers and the other machinery workers, the surgeons got frustrated and did not want to be compared with the other workers. Even though it was hard for Gilbreths to convince them, they had chance to conduct to micro motion study by photographing and getting the motion pictures of the surgeons while they were operating. Gilbreths realized the wasted time of the
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