Background: The patient is a middle-aged man who injured his elbow three days ago and had one stitch. He came to the clinic today for a dressing change.
Having often changed dressings for postoperative patients in the ward, I felt confident that there should be no problem, so I bravely proceeded to do it alone. As expected, something went wrong—the patient’s blood scab was tightly stuck to the gauze, and removing the gauze was very painful. After taking off a portion, I realized this wouldn’t work; it wasn’t just painful but also pulling off skin! I tried changing the angle and tried again, but failed, so I quickly called for help and summoned the nurse teacher.
As expected, the teacher is experienced and knowledgeable—she has used more povidone-iodine than I have drunk water! 
She soaked a large amount of povidone-iodine on the gauze and used a povidone-iodine cotton ball to slowly and carefully separate the gauze bit by bit—success! 
After disinfecting the wound, the teacher let me apply the secondary dressing myself, then quietly left without making a scene, truly a model of professionalism.
Next steps, as expected, also had issues—the elbow joint moves a lot, so ordinary secondary dressings would fall off after bending just a couple of times (no wonder the patient came with gauze instead of a dressing for the change). If the dressing falls off later, the patient would be embarrassed, and I would feel even more embarrassed.
The patient said, “The last doctor used this dressing which didn’t work well, so they just put gauze on me.”
Me: “Oh oh, mmh mmh, ah yes yes yes.”
As the saying goes, “Frequent illness makes you a doctor,” and as the saying also goes, “Among three people walking, there must be a teacher for me to learn from,” at times like this don’t feel embarrassed; obediently follow routine and cover with sterile gauze.
Wish him a smoother dressing change next time 