best practice kit for suturing?

Started by GladifImakeit
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We had a guy come in during second year with some pig's feet and he taught us how to suture. I suppose the best way to teach yourself would be to pick up a foot from your butcher and watch some videos on youtube. You might have to gank a suture kit and a needle driver, if you have access to that kind of thing.
 
I am just a lowly med 1, so I haven't had to learn fo' reals... But at the skills lab at my school they use ham hocks and just some crappy needle holders and tissue forceps to teach people...

You can buy cheap(aka crap) needle holders and forceps off of ebay or amazon, and relatively cheap, opened suture boxes on ebay.

Youtube has a ton of suturing videos, going over subq, intermittent, etc.

Hope this helps?
 
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steal a suture removal kit and a few nylons/monocryl from the hospital. take a few pairs of gloves while you're at it.

I've tried using oranges, but I really like using a chicken breast (hence the gloves). plus when you're done, you can pop out the sutures and throw it in the oven.
 
coldleg said:
steal a suture removal kit and a few nylons/monocryl from the hospital. take a few pairs of gloves while you're at it.

I've tried using oranges, but I really like using a chicken breast (hence the gloves). plus when you're done, you can pop out the sutures and throw it in the oven.
Click to expand...

Yup. Go to the OR and ask a nurse or a tech for some sutures, an old needle driver, adson, suture scissors, and a suture removal kit. I doubt you'll get much resistance (maybe try to find a nurse or a tech that you know a little bit).

+1 with the chicken breast
 
+1 for using gloves while you practice--I found it a lot harder to tie knots w/ gloves on than w/ bare hands, totally different feel. Also practice opening and closing a needle drive w/o putting your fingers in the holes.
 
With gloves on, soak your hands in soap water and then practice knot tying. In the actual surgical field, if you've come in contact with any blood your hands will be slippery and knot-tying will be very difficult from your usual dry, bare hands knot-tying feel.

You can definitely practice your knot tying outside the OR but in the end, I think closing on a real patient is the best practice you will get because the tissue texture and makeup of human dermis isn't comparable to pig/chicken skin.

Not to mention, patients' skin architecture is different too. For example, closing a 89 year old with multiple past surgeries is WAY, WAY different (in my opinion, harder) than closing a 30 year old with no surgical history because the 30 year old's skin is tighter and more stronger than the 89 year old's.
 
The Amazon needle drivers aren't bad by any means. They're definitely better than the ones I practiced during skills lab at school.
 
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