Emergency Wound Management

This full day workshop is suitable for Medical Officers, Nurses, Paramedics and Students wishing to be competent in suturing and management of acute wounds.

In this workshop we begin by considering the importance of wound assessment. While simple wounds are common in acute care it is always important to consider concomitant injury(s) or disease, risk factors that may complicate wound management and assess the wound for injuries to vital tissues such as tendons, nerves and joints. The aim is to identify those wounds requiring referral due to nerve, tendon vascular, joint injury or with extensive tissue loss from the simple wounds that can using be debrided and easily closed.

The workshop focuses on the management of simple wounds (meaning wounds with no evidence of tendon or nerve injury or penetration of a joint). Major considerations that are covered include setup, preparation and equipment, local anaesthesia and haemostasis, decontamination and debridement, techniques for wound closure including suturing, wound glues and staples, antibiotics and tetanus, analgesia and post discharge advice and follow up. A major part of the workshop will focus on suturing and will include demonstration and practice of a variety of common techniques useful for the management of acute wounds.

At the completion of this workshop you should be confident to assess a wound for serious injury and within your scope of practice be able to debride and manage the majority of the wounds you encounter in your clinical practice.

Wound closure techniques taught in the workshop include:

• Application of Wound glue
• Wound closure using staples
• Wound closure of superficial wounds using interrupted sutures
• Wound closure techniques for managing "dog ears", ragged injuries, degloving injuries and wounds associated skin loss
• Wound closure techniques for managing deep +/- gaping wounds

The workshop will provide the opportunity to discuss/demonstrate other areas of wound management relevant to the group.

Credentialling for Advanced Nursing Practice

The program meets the SA Health training requirement for nurses wishing to become credentialled in advanced practice nursing practice. Upon completion of the workshop training, the nurse is required to be observed managing 5 patients requiring acute wound management (including at least three that require closure with sutures). The observer must be credentialled to suture patients in their clinical practice.