Shea Simmons
When it comes to a mild medical emergency, there’s no one you want around more than a doctor–and a doctor’s first aid kit. But turns out, these medical professionals keep one item with them that you may find a bit odd.
Apartment Therapy spoke to doctors across the country about the things they keep in their first aid kits. Most of them are pretty standard: stickers for sad kids, Ace bandages, Vicks Vaporub. However, there were a few outliers such as natural products like tea tree oil and honey, but the strangest was certainly superglue. Now, for those of you who already know about this trick: Congrats. But if you’re wondering how could superglue possibly be useful, it’s not to glue back together a cup you broke and may have cut yourself on. It’s to glue back your skin.
Boston-based doctor, Michael Richardson told the outlet, “It can be a game-changer for cleaning small deep cuts that likely need stitches,” he says. “It’s certainly not a replacement for a medical evaluation and has its own side effects (skin irritation, for example), but it can come in handy if you or your child get hurt in a remote area where you can’t easily seek care from a medical professional.”
While you should always see a doctor if you believe you need any number of stitches, this super glue hack isn’t too shabby. To see the rest of the doctors’ items, you can head over to Apartment Therapy and check them out.
