• Written By: Jessica Dawson , FM PGY2 in Edmonton
• Expert Review By: Dr. Brent Crawford, an Emergency Medicine physician at Westview Health Center in Stony Plain Alberta.

Lacerations come in many shapes and flavours - big ones, little ones, simple ones, dirty ones, bloody ones, complicated ones - . . .you get it. As family physicians we tend to encounter accidental lacerations (as opposed to incisions of our own making) most often in emergency medicine or urgent care, but we will also see a lot of lacerations in follow up.

Lacerations are one of those topics where art, science and personal preference tend to collide. There is enormous practice variation between physicians - probably in part because there is an absence of evidence for and lot of dogma behind many common practices.

We will focus on the fundamentals for the CCFP exam – the things you need to know to put back together the most common lacerations you'll encounter, and to identify those situations where referral might be necessary or when it's best not to close things up at all!

There are some great links in the show notes you can reference with tips and tricks for repairing different types of lacerations and deep dives into the evidence.