What's up with the tunneling wounds?

[PatMac10,RN, RN]

Super psyched about prospectively entering nursing school, I was reading over one of my med-surg nursing books that my cousin, who just graduated, gave me. In the book it talked about tunneling in a wound. I remeber learning about tunneling this summer in a special program for recent HS grads who are going into nursing (Nurse Camp). We learned how to dress wounds that had tunneling. My question is why does tunneling occur and when is it most likely to happen?

Note about Nurse Camp:

I had a thread about this camp earlier. Just to clarify, this camp introduces students to some basic nursing concepts and procedures. Since I was a chartering camper and 2nd year camper this year, we learned more advanced techniques. The program is hosted by a local CC's nursing program where we are paried with a current nursing student and the nursing education staff teaches us about the various facets of nursing. IT is a great camp and extremely fun. We never see and perform procedures on real patients. It is just a 3 day camp where we experiment in the nursing lab and allied health building.

Sorry for the long explanation, apparently some actually thought this camp let us really do all these things on real people, I dont' know why.

[chloecatrn]

http://www.o-wm.com/content/wound-tunneling

http://www.polymem.com/pearls/pearls4practice0209.pdf?line_id=209

Those both explain tunneling fairly well. Tunneling wounds freak me out. One of the few things that really just have ick factor for me.

[PatMac10,RN, RN]

Thanks ChloecatRN! They were very helpful.