There is no reason why an EM resident can’t suture this up. I wouldn’t send a pgy-0 in there, but anyone with a little experience can do it. This is an important part of training, learning to stitch up weird things. The main reason not to do it is that you don’t want to lose your pgy-2 for an hour. J O (not Joe) did this with almost no direction.
Some hints – the first two stitches should be at the vermilion border / middle. Most of these wounds do not require a deep stitch. Find a blue suture. If you can’t find a blue stitch, leave the tails long or shave the moustache so that the person taking out the sutures later don’t curse your name (S.U. knows this).
I agree Suif. I would talk Moskovitz and make sure they stock “blue sutures etc”.
The argument about losing an intern for an hour is moot. Now being out of the Jacobi/Monte world, I often have to do my own reductions, lacerations, procedures in general. It is up to me to make sure this is done efficiently.
You save a lot of time when someone preps everything for you, but at Jacobi having everything you need at bedside including lidocaine (in the form of some wound cart/kit) works just as well.
I actually saw this gentleman (a few weeks later…but that’s a different story) for suture removal. The blue stitches made removal such a breeze. He said he’s never had a faster suture removal and was happy he didn’t lose any part of his mustache- the wound healed really well, good job J O!