Primary Care Residents Must Be Able to Manage Lacerations

Primary care residency programs differ. Some are at large academic centers while others are community based. Access to faculty for teaching may vary as well.  Residents will spend a lot of time in the ED-mostly for consults and admissions, but almost all require at least one focused ED rotation. Here, you will be expected to manage lacerations. More importantly, when your residents graduate, are they going to be able to provide this service in their office?  Our primary care physicians should be able to manage most simple lacerations in the office setting instead of directing their patients to urgent care. 

Does your internal or family medicine program have focused training on managing lacerations or do you rely on the ED team to teach and train them on this information? This requires more than just a once annual suturing workshop! Having a focused and comprehensive course on laceration management will free up didact time for other topics. You will be getting comprehensive education that the resident can access at any time. If there is a 6-month gap from when they have traditional didactic lectures and their ED rotation, it is guaranteed that they will have forgotten everything. Please contact me to discuss group pricing for your family or internal medicine residency program.