Tell me if this is the norm in your er!

So what's the problem. One can buy a suture kit on the internet, and then watch how to do it on Youtube. Simple sutures are not that complex. If the doc assesed the pt and then gave the go ahead for the tech/RN to suture, well there you go. I beleive that RN's should learn how to suture in school. I believe that all RN's should be trained as field medics as well. Why not? If in any small town or big city where a catastrophic situation arises, and hundreds or thousands have to be triaged and treated, then we as a society with the medical knowledge should be ready and capable to handle those situations. Where would one get the practice to be prepared? When one is handling everyday problems.

Why do RN's sell themselves so short? One needs a professional hand, Bull Malarky !!! If a Doctor can be trained to suture a lip, hip, or hand so can an RN.
My Father used to say " I can't, never could." It is the skill they don't want RN's to have so the RN can't bill fo the skill !!!

I think you are missing the point. "Field medic" is not really the role of a nurse. Hence, the fact that nurses spend a significant portion of their education learning to work in "backbone" areas of medicine. You must understand, nursing is a highly diversified field. Therefore, entry level education is focused on the common jobs and tasks required of a nurse.

Additionally, we can train every RN as a field medic, and these RN's will promptly forget all of this knowledge within a few years of practice because only a few would actually work in such a role. Would you expect an emergency room nurse to perform a comprehensive in-patient psychological assessment and interpret GAS scores on a patient with schitzoaffective disorder?

In addition, I guarantee you that if such a scenario occurred (doomsday/field medic), our ability to do any meaningful care to critically injured patients would be minimal at best. This is from somebody who has worked in urban and remote areas of the world where the health care system is all but non-existent. If a nurse wishes to learn "remote medicine" there are a multitude of ways to obtain such knowledge after they master the fundamental concepts of nursing.

You see, we need to focus on the commonly encountered scenarios and do the most good for the most amount of people, not train for a doomsday scenario. In the big picture, suturing is not an important part of our overall job. I simply cannot see wasting precious time teaching nurses to do this when that time could be spent working in the clinical environment as a floor nurse. In my final note, I would like to point out one fact. RN's do learn laceration repair. Most nurse practitioners are taught wound repair techniques as part of their advanced education.

Funny.....the people most qualified and most experienced to suture in my ER are the medics. I would trust them with my life.

In ther uk np can suture. whilst a nursing student in the er
i ahve seen simple lac on a patients finger not sutured but secrued by sterstrips and dermabond and worked really well. the pt was an older adult with tissure papter skin and the lac was skin deep only to suture it would not have held. The rn was ex army nursing services and really knew what he was doing.

I would also assume laws vary by state, In TN it is the norm for the MD to do the cleaning and closure, although at busy times I have seen an RN or two do it all. I do believe this is out of their scope of practice though.

Not sure about your state.

I've never heard of RNs suturing episiotomies! CNMs do, but then they also deliver the baby!

Just because someone has been "trained" in something doesn't make it within their scope of practice. I'm sure that some RN's could be taught the procedure for initiating and maintaining general anesthesia, but that doesn't mean that it's within their scope, and they certainly shouldn't be doing it! (Nurse Anesthetists aside.)
Just my opinion.

Medics do not typically suture in combat. The priorities of care in a combat situation revolve around achieving tactical superiority, extricating the patient from the environment, and hemorrhage control if possible. Even further along the continuum in the Medical Evacuation care phase, suturing is not a priority.

I found this thread trying to research USA hospital ERs using RNs to suture. I have been charged with this research for my ER. If anyone knows of any EDs employing this practice, please let me know.

Goodness, I would just be glad if a doctor or ped. would be willing to put in two or three stitches in their office. But no way, off to the ER for something minor that they could easily do in the office most times. Office docs don't seem to want to deal with much of anything anymore--it's sad really.