Med School Learnin': Skin Grafting

Correction on my part, skin grafting was just an interesting in class side discussion for my fiance, he was really covering skin in general. Well, here is what I could force him to explain.

There are two kinds of skin grafts, as I understand it. One is called a full-thickness graft and includes both the epidermis and dermis, while a thinner split-level is sort of the variable graft that doesn't include both layers of skin. If you're getting a skin graft, depending on what doctors determine, having a thick graft is a desirable thing as the post-healing graft will maintain smoother skin qualities. With all great sounding deals, a full-thickness graft needs a lot more favorable conditions for it to heal correctly. On the bright side, it is usually used to graft on smaller areas... which is a silver lining right? You've been burned or have otherwise hurt your largest organ, but if you get a full-thickness graft at least that means the area needing a graft is smaller.

Again, as I understand what I was told, for large areas that have been damaged the skin can be meshed. And, yes, it looks exactly like you might expect. There are different tools that can sort of fishnet stocking your skin graft.

This is what one of the mesher tools looks like. Less high 

tech than one would image.

Possible Beginnings for Med School Learnin'

Alright, I like starting projects but sometimes I get distracted by the myriad of cool facts or connections. To make a commitment, I'm doing a quick proposal for the first (of many?) Med School Learnin' entries.

To start out I think I will cover skin grafting. My fiance covered this a week or two ago. I distinctly remember a sense of skin crawling while listening to him explain how doctors regrow skin in areas that have been damaged. The images we looked at were also very raw.

Here is an image teaser, and this illustration is fairly tame unless you have a weak stomach.