You can buy surgical scrub about anywhere- contains chlorhexadine. great for wound managment and also great for cleaning utensils in a pinch.
manual cleaning and then you can sterilize it in several fashions. Boil the utensils in water for 20 minutes will do it, if you had a pressure cooker it would do even better. the pressure cooker is an archaic method of autoclaving.
If you are in the field, you should still scrub biomaterials off the utensils and then you can soak in rubbing alcohol bath.
the old poor a "sip" of whiskey on the blade isn't exactly the gold standard.
In reference to the rest: suturing is easy once you get the hang of it. knowing when to suture and when not to suture is the hard part. you don't suture to "stop bleeding", you suture to re-unite an open wound that is already in the process of healing through 2nd intention healing.
I keep non absorbable suture in my FA kit as well as autoclaved needle holders, forceps, scissors and a scalpel. Suturing is rarely a "life saving" even when it comes to superficial wounds, but the wounds will heal a lot nicer and in most cases faster! (which is in disagreement with what someone above said). it's faster because the closer the 2 ends of tissue are together, the less granulation needs to occur to "bridge" the gap.
If done correctly it can prevent infection, but I've seen some HORRIBLE suturing on people and animals that was counter productive.
I just graduated from nursing school. I have packed pressure ulcers that you could fit your fist into on multiple occasions, so yes I'd say nursing students will learn a thing or two about wound healing.
ETA: To clarify I have not sutured anything. The extent to which we learned about would healing revolved around the concepts of keeping it clean and promoting formation of granulation tissue so that it can heal effectively.
Whoever posted about putting honey in wounds
Last edited by N4LtRecce; 12-18-12 at 19:53.
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