About Curtis J. Edwards, MD, FACS Expertise Can answer general and vascular surgery questions, trauma, burns, some plastic surgery questions, general gastrointestinal surgery and gastrointestinal medical questions and questions regarding aviation medicine.
Experience Board certified general surgeon. Seventeen years practice experience in general, vascular, and no-cardiac thoracic surgery and endoscopy.
Organizations College of Surgeons, AMA, Aerospace Medical Assoc., Civil Aviation Medical Assoc.
Education/Credentials BA, MD, American Board of Surgery, Fellow American College of Surgeons, seventeen years practice all phases, including teaching.
Question I have a 4 inch cut on my knee that is almost to the joint in depth. I have had it closed with stitches and staples many times due to it reopening. Now the skin is so tough that the stitches wont hold the cut together. I am going to go to the ER what are they going to do to me?
Answer The wound can be treated by keeping it clean and letting it heal in by secondary intention. Long before stitches, early man would get wounds that healed if they did not become infected and the infection spread. The technique is simple: shower into the wound everyday using regular soap and water. Follow this with placing a sterile saline moistened gauze dressing into the wound and covering this with a dry sterile dressing and tape. The wound will heal from the inside out, eventually contracting and forming a sturdy scar.
