User:Navy Malinois/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating Surgical suture

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have applied to general surgery and believe it important to have a good understanding of the different types of sutures and indications for them. Working with other surgical residents I noted that even they have very little understanding or direct training on the different types of surgical suture and indications of use.

Evaluate the article
Lead section: The first sentence identifies the topic correctly, however, it is poorly worded and not entirely technically accurate. It states that a surgical sutures purpose is to hold human tissue together, which is true but I would reword this to say: approximate wound edges externally and bring body tissues together internally. This section does not provide an overview or complete representation of the article.

Content: Content is lacking specifically with the overview of the different materials of surgical suture. This section should arguably be the longest as it is the main subject of the article, however, it is one of the shorter sections. Specifically, they are missing many different types of materials that are commonly used. Because of the addition of so many different types of materials I would reorganize the article have "materials" as a heading and then under that divide the materials into absorbable versus nonabsorbable, braided versus non braided and synthetic versus natural. We can then add more details to the specific types of suture as necessary. For example: monocryl would go under synthetic absorbable non braided and it would be pertinent to add the sutures absorption rates to correlate to what type of wound would benefit most from this suture (I.e the face heals quickly thus can tolerate a material with a quick absorption rate).

Tone and Balance: This is a neutral article without specific bias or controversy, however, it is extremely outdated.

Sources and References: The sources are almost all outside of the 5 year window and there are many more up to date sources that could bring more accurate content. Given the pace at which medicine and sutures have advanced, this article contains quite a bit of inaccurate or "old" research that no longer fits the current guidelines and way of thought.

Organization and Quality of Writing: The contents structure is fair, however, I think it could be formatted in a less confusing manner.

Images and Media: There are many great images that help capture the understanding of the article, however, I would like to add images specifically for the material types to avoid confusion. Many suture materials have specific colors or packaging so that the surgeon or professional can immediately identify the type of material they are using. I think it would be helpful to showcase these colors and unique aspects of the many different types of sutures.

Talk Page: The most recent talk page discussion was posted in 2007 and there seems to be quite a bit of confusion and misinterpretation of information at that time. This article is part of wikiproject medicine and was rated as a start page.

Overall impression: I believe this article needs quite a bit of TLC. The organization needs to be rethought and more up to date content added, with the subtraction of old information (it is no longer a consensus that braided materials cause infection). I would consider this article poorly developed, however, the historical section is a strong suite.