For the past 10 years, the knot-tying board has served many students of surgery as a helpful teaching tool for the mastery of surgical knots. The early acquisition of basic surgical techniques by surgical trainees as dry runs, exercises and practice before in vivo trials is especially needed because of our present medical and legal atmosphere. The increasing inaccessibility of animal surgery to surgical students and trainees gives the practice or drill boards a more important and necessary role than in the past. With this in mind, we hope that the Operation Drill Board model we have developed will be as useful to students of surgery as the knot-tying board has been over the past 10 years.
