Honor Your Wound Care Heroes

Dear Readers,

Driving home yesterday I saw a sign that read “Honor our heroes on Memorial Day.” It is very appropriate that we honor the heroes who have fought and who are fighting to assure us the freedom that we enjoy and often take for granted. I began thinking of heroes and wondered, “Who are the heroes of wound care?” To me they are the pioneers who came before us on whose shoulders we stand and whose knowledge we use as we treat our patients with chronic wounds and advance the science of wound care. Do we really know the individuals responsible for the knowledge about the science and treatment of wounds that we confidently rely on today? Perhaps we should take time to find out who these remarkable people are so that we can “honor” them as our “Heroes of Wound Care.”

Who are your wound care heroes? Mine are easy. The first is my father who has just retired after practicing general surgery for 55 years. He taught me very early in my medical career how to treat acute and chronic wounds to achieve the best results both clinically and cosmetically. He also taught me to clean a wound of any foreign debris and to handle tissues gently. He stressed the importance of achieving hemostasis in a wound before closing it and of closing a wound without leaving “dead space,” which would predispose to the development of infection. He taught me the importance of reducing edema in the leg of a patient with a chronic venous ulcer and how to properly apply a compression bandage. He emphasized that a diabetic foot ulcer would never heal if the patient continued to walk on it. My father taught me little tricks in taking care of wounds that do not seem to be taught today. When I show these techniques to residents they ask, “Where did you learn how to do that?” I take great pride in telling them that my Wound Care Hero, my father, taught me.

My Wound Care Hero taught me the intangibles of taking care of patients. He insisted that I take care of the patient and not just the wound. He showed me by example how to obtain all the medically relevant information from a patient with a seemingly social conversation. He showed me that if you sit and talk to a patient, the patient will perceive that you have spent at least twice the amount of time with them than if you had spent the same amount of time while standing. Patients want to know that we care about them. Sitting and talking is a very simple way to accomplish this. Following my father’s direction has kept me in good stead for many years.

Who is your Wound Care Hero? Take a few minutes to reflect on your career and see who has had the biggest impact on you. Take time to honor your Wound Care Hero everyday—it is the right thing to do.

to be continued…

Terry Treadwell, MD, FACS