Confession

Today the medical student wanted to do the suturing on my patient's open wound. I agreed to supervise but I hoped to God that he would not ask me any advice. For I have a confession to make.

Wounds are a problem that I taught myself how to manage. The only thing my clinical school helped me in terms of managing wounds is:

teaching me how to make sutures on a sponge

That's it. As for how to assess wounds...I don't remember ever learning that. Or maybe I missed that class. Oh yes, I remember now. We didn't really have a good Plastic Surgery rotation at the time. No one turned up to teach us.

The first time I ever stitched a real person (who wasn't under general anaesthesia) was in my first week in Warragul...a man's cut lip. Of all places to start...it's the lip. Suturing is easy but what did I know about injecting local anaesthetic. The only reason I knew was because I myself had had local done on me. And what did I know about what size sutures to use, how many stitches to put in. Had to learn all that through trial and error. A mean feat because all the wounds I've seen are all different. None of them were the same.

I didn't know which wounds needed just stitching up, an Xray on the side or plastic surgery. But now I do. Learnt it the hard way.

And now I know all the funny and interesting ways people can get injured.