EM Bound

As medical students it can be hard at times to find ways to contribute to the care of our patients and teams. Sure, we see and evaluate patients on our own, but that doesn't preclude a more senior member from also doing their own evaluation, work-up, and note. Most everything we do needs to be approved or observed: our orders must be signed, procedures must often be carried out under watchful eyes, and patients are sometimes (understandably so!) unwilling to let the junior members of the team practice basic skills on them. When you know that asserting yourself in the care of your patient requires everyone else to chip in, it is easy to feel like a burden rather than a team player, especially in the fast-paced and busy environment of the emergency room. The flip side, of course, is that if you can find a way to carve out a niche for yourself by owning certain areas of your patients' care, you can work within the team to ease the workload of everyone around you and drive patie...

One of the skills most frequently taught and asked for by EM bound students is suturing. It's also one of the ways to shine as student rotating in the Emergency Department. Repairing lacerations is a common task for most emergency physicians on an average shift and is part of our core knowledge, but it is also time consuming. Offering to assist is a great way to help your EM team on shift. In many academic centers complex lacerations involving the face and other cosmetically important areas might involve a plastics or OMFS consult, but not always. On one shift in a rural hospital I covered I once spent two and half hours suturing an ear back together that had been blown apart by a firecracker. Here are some key pieces of advice and my favorite online resource to get you started so you're ready to jump in and help on your next shift. Spend some time at home learning and practicing. You won't be much help if you don't have at least some of the basic skills u...