Simple laceration repair and wound management

Your progress

Saved on this device.

Target exams

Red flags

• A wound on a child who will not let you examine it, or whose story does not fit the injury — consider non-accidental injury and document precisely
• A laceration over a joint, lip vermillion border, eyelid, face, or involving a tendon, nerve, or vessel — these need senior or specialist assessment, not a simple bedside closure
• A contaminated wound, a bite, or a wound over six to twelve hours old on the hand or face — higher infection risk; avoid tissue adhesive and consider debridement, delayed closure, and antibiotic prophylaxis
• Tissue adhesive applied to mucosa, a high-tension wound, a bite, or an infected wound — it will fail, trap infection, and harm the child
• Exceeding the local anaesthetic maximum dose — lidocaine three milligrams per kilogram plain or seven milligrams per kilogram with adrenaline, bupivacaine two milligrams per kilogram — risks local anaesthetic systemic toxicity with seizures and cardiovascular collapse
• A child sent home after laceration repair without written wound care advice and a review or removal date — missed infection and retained sutures are preventable

Life stages

Care settings

Clinical exam formats

Board mappings

• General and Community Paediatrics
• Procedural skills — wound assessment and simple closure
• Procedural skills — simple laceration repair and wound management
• Current 2026 PREP curriculum — Learning Objective: perform practical procedures to a safe standard including wound management
• Clinical Applications
• Medical Sciences
• Procedural skills
• Short Cases
• Structured oral — minor trauma and procedural skills
• 1.4 Safely and appropriately performs practical procedures and uses medical devices
• 4. Patient management
• 8. Patient safety
• Foundation of Practice (FOP)
• Applied Knowledge in Practice (AKP)
• Clinical — communication with children and practical procedures
• General Pediatrics Content Outline — Emergency Medicine and procedural skills
• Universal Task 4: Management and Treatment
• Patient Care 1: procedural competency
• Interpersonal and Communication Skills
• Medical Expert
• Communicator
• Pediatrics: Procedural skill — simple wound management