I did a rotation in plastic surgery as a junior doctor: I wanted to have practice suturing.
During my first on-call I spent 6 hours suturing one patient: he had been assaulted with a panga. At the end of that and with more than 12 hours to go to the end of my call I felt that I had had as much practice as I could conceivably want. I still had six months of my rotation to complete.
Our commitments are made in ignorance. And hindsight is no good: given the answer all problems look solvable.
Last night I sutured a complex facial laceration on an elderly patient – it was slow, difficult suturing and took some time. It reminded me of two things: practice makes perfect (cf. practice makes permanent) and time is the ultimate value (cf. Wal-Mart vs. Google).
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