Medical Mystery Mondays- Stitches

I'm in my second year of PA school and we are learning some of the fun procedures we will be doing for...well the rest of our lives.

One of these, my favorite so far, is suturing. So I thought I would share with you an unfortunate banana that had a run in with a steak knife.

**please take note in the real world I would be using "smaller thread" this was simply for practice and it is what I had on hand at the time!

This is called a simple interrupted stitch, it is the most common one used for the "average" laceration

This one is called a continuous stitch, it is more for large surgical sights that will heal easily. It however  leaves some pretty bad "rail road track" scars. So not for use on the face!

This is the "skin" the school gives us to practice with. It reminds me of memory foam with tan paint on the top. This is a a very close shot, the total length of this incision pictured here is only about 1.5 inches.

The bottom four stitches are again simple interrupted, the middle two stitches are horizontal mattress stitches used for deep cuts on the palms/soles of the feet, and the top two are vertical mattress stitches also used for deep cuts on the palms/soles of the feet.

I plan on practicing on some pigs feet in the future, I may or may not post pictures because they are a little more gruesome looking!

Below is a picture of me down town last November...yes that is Mexico right on the other side of the fence, I told you I live in South Texas!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Christina