An Emergency Medicine Myth?
I’ve internalized all the dogma of medicine, for good and bad.
When I was an EMT, green as a twig in an ER, I learned the basics: For any wound with hair employ the razor, and get the hair away from the laceration so the doc could do a good closure.
So, employment week #3: Eyebrow laceration? Shaved that sucker clean off. ER doc freaked out, and I learned some medical dogma: Don’t shave eyebrows, they don’t grow back. Heard it later, too — all the way through training, in fact.
Hmm. My now older-guy eyebrows would like to disagree…
I shave my face nearly daily. All the hair comes back. I have women in the home, who bemoan their razor rituals. I see younguns with cuts deliberately made in their brows, with blithe unconcern they might be permanently bald there.
I’ve never, ever seen a person come in with one normal and one shorn-off brow — never. (I’ve seen people with shaven brows and penciled in, unlikely shaped eyebrows but that’s an interesting choice).
So, myth of EM? I think so. I seek the wisdom of the learned crowd.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
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