Asynchrony PEM: Wound Care in Kids

Welcome to the Asynchrony PEM (Pediatric EM), brought to you by the PEM faculty and fellows of Warren Alpert Medical School/Brown University's Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship.
Each week we'll be curating content from the #FOAMpeds and #FOAMed world into modules organized by topic and relevant to the pediatric population. Follow @AsynchronyEM and @BrownEMRes on Twitter for new releases!

This week: tips on wound care in kids. Glue, sutures, nerve blocks, tongue lacs, pain control...we've got lots to cover.

But first, gotta get the theme song in! Naturally, we have:

Ok, let's get to it.

1) When and how to use tissue adhesive. From Peds EM Morsels. Lots of useful tips!

 

2) Next: when it's time for sutures, how do you know what to use? This site has a nice little chart demonstrating the difference between suture material and reviews some cases. 

Suture Choice Guide

 

3) Topical Anesthesia: how do I know what to use? Podcast from PEM Currents (about 7.5 minutes.)

LET, EMLA and LMX what's the difference?

 

4) Sometimes, local wound infiltration with anesthetic just won't cut it. Know your blocks! From EMDocs.

Facial Nerve Blocks

b) From Taming the SRU: goes over dosing of lidocaine and other local anesthetics. To view the videos click on the Mona Lisa Pic.

Videos of facial nerve blocks

 

5) These techniques for I&D pain control can also be used for lac repairs. From PEMBlog.

Pain Control for I&D

 

6) Tongues --- ugh! From PEM Blog and Peds EM Morsels.

Tongue Lacs: To repair or not to repair

Another Tongue lac morsel

 

7) Bonus Site: Explore this site at your leisure. This site has some nice videos and goes over different suturing techniques, complicated pairs, etc. 

Closing the Gap

 

See? Nothing to be scared of -- for you or your pediatric patient!

See you next time with some more curated #FOAMped content!


Frances Turcotte Benedict, MD MPH (@fturcotteMD) is an Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Her interests in medicine include injury prevention with a focus on youth violence prevention, medical education and simulation.