How to take a wound culture swab
Other platforms explain it with text and video. In Making Synapses you practice it on the patient.
Swab the wound bed, not the pus on top, after cleaning.
Step by step
Clean the wound
Normal saline; remove loose debris. [1]
Choose the area
Healthy-looking tissue in the wound bed, not dead tissue or old pus. [1]
Swab
Press and rotate over about 1 square cm for a few seconds. [1]
Into the tube
Without touching anything else. [1]
Label
Site, date, time, at the bedside. [2]
Dress the wound
Clean dressing. [1]
Common errors
- Swabbing before cleaning.
- Swabbing the dressing or skin.
- Missing the site on the label.
Practice it in Making Synapses
In Making Synapses you do this on the patient, not on paper: every step goes on the checklist with a score, and in Teach mode Blocky tells you what comes next.
Making Synapses cases that train this skill
- Opioid overdose in the waiting room
- Pressure injury in a wheelchair user
- Traumatic cardiac arrest
- Chronic venous insufficiency
- Cellulitis
- Orbital cellulitis
15 Making Synapses cases train this skill: open the case library
Sources
- Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College) (CC BY 4.0)
- The Joint Commission, National Patient Safety Goals
- OpenStax, Clinical Nursing Skills (reference)
Steps adapted from Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College), licensed under CC BY 4.0. Facts and steps also follow OpenStax, Clinical Nursing Skills (reference). Making Synapses is not affiliated with these organizations. Updated: 2026-10-11.