Mike; the first time I looked at the pictures, I realized that they were posed and that the wheel was turned off. I personally find this perfectly acceptable.
Adding the disclaimer that you wear protective clothing and other gear when actually working is helpful to those who do not realize that the pics were posed.
One thing I agree with the other posters about is removing all jewelry from your extremeties (OK, Mike, you can leave on the ankle bracelet with 'Tinkerbell' on it). Seriously, any metal on your forearms or hands can have catastrophic consequences. Rings are especially bad, as the most common injury with them is called a 'degloving' injury. The ring is ripped off the finger, and leaves the bone alone, but turns the rest of the finger inside out (just like peeling off the finger of a glove). These can be truly disasterous. So be safe, OK?
To the poster that had objects removed from his cornea with a 'bent hypo.' You must have hit the ER when the rookies were on. A hypodermic needle doesn't need to be bent to remove a corneal f.b., and while I have used one hundreds of times to do this without mishap, the correct tool is an eye spud. This looks like a miniature golf club, and you basically scrape the sharp edge of the 'club' head across the cornea, getting under the edge of the f.b. and lifting it up and out. The problem with a hypodermic needle is that you can poke it right through the cornea, and if you do, you are in real deep kim chee. The reason I used needles for this purpose is that an eye spud wasn't always available. No one seemed to know what they were, and they were often in the ENT or ORTHO trays. Your point about prevention being much more important than treatment is well taken. Wear eye protection whenever you are doing something dangerous. You only get two eyes.
Walt Welch MD, Diplomate, American Board of Emergency Medicine
