Well, not for the patient, but I must confess, I really enjoyed suture lab a few weeks ago. Our class was taught by an ER NP and she was wonderful...and she brought her 8wk old twins in who were so cute and a fun distraction for all us WHNP's! 
We learned 3 basic suture techniques and practiced our newly acquired skills on bits of chicken, I was working with a chicken breast. **All chicken bits used were compassionately numbed with practice lidocaine prior to suturing, hehehe** We started the class by reviewing different types of tissue trauma, anesthesia options and how to choose the right type of suturing for each injury. Of the 3 suture types I felt most
comfortable with the simple interrupted stitch (the top row on the picture). The running stitch (bottom row on the picture) and vertical mattress stitch (middle row on the picture) took more time to really get down and require much more attention to depth & spacing of each stitch. We also learned how to tie off each stitch using only our instruments, which as it turns out is pretty easy and much faster than using your hands. As a WHNP I most likely will NOT be suturing on a daily or even weekly basis...but on the rare event of a complicated bartholin's cyst excision, tissue biopsy or perineal/vulvar laceration, it will be important to be able to put a stitch in place and do it well. Here are a few other pictures from suture lab that day, they include more shots of my sutured chicken (hehehe) and classmates Laurie, Jeanie and Lynn:
We learned 3 basic suture techniques and practiced our newly acquired skills on bits of chicken, I was working with a chicken breast. **All chicken bits used were compassionately numbed with practice lidocaine prior to suturing, hehehe** We started the class by reviewing different types of tissue trauma, anesthesia options and how to choose the right type of suturing for each injury. Of the 3 suture types I felt most
comfortable with the simple interrupted stitch (the top row on the picture). The running stitch (bottom row on the picture) and vertical mattress stitch (middle row on the picture) took more time to really get down and require much more attention to depth & spacing of each stitch. We also learned how to tie off each stitch using only our instruments, which as it turns out is pretty easy and much faster than using your hands. As a WHNP I most likely will NOT be suturing on a daily or even weekly basis...but on the rare event of a complicated bartholin's cyst excision, tissue biopsy or perineal/vulvar laceration, it will be important to be able to put a stitch in place and do it well. Here are a few other pictures from suture lab that day, they include more shots of my sutured chicken (hehehe) and classmates Laurie, Jeanie and Lynn:
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