Presumably as a surgeon, Mayfield has "good hands", and pulled off an amazing bit of sleight-of-hand while working in the surgical cavity.
What's even more amazing is why he bothered with dissolving sutures. After he unpacked those sutures (before the day of surgery, I assume) and handled them in order to dye them a different color, the sutures would have been so loaded with germs that the infection alone would have killed the patient.