You’ll not learn what you need to know to sew up wounds from reading an article in a magazine, even one as awesome as Be Ready! However, I do hope to whet your appetite. Like plumbing, car repair, or electrical work, suturing wounds isn’t hard, you just have to do it enough to be comfortable. The basic techniques wisely applied will address most of the minor trauma you might encounter whilst in an austere environment. Under the right circumstances it can save a vacation. In darker spaces a little medical knowledge can save a life. Most folks are a little squeamish. Every medical student is a wee bit green the first day of Gross Anatomy. However, the human animal can acclimate to anything. A week into Gross I could have happily killed a pizza there. Tolerance for blood and gore is usually an acquired taste. Just suck it up and get past it. YouTube is rife with instructional videos on surgery and basic wound closure. Surgeons occasionally pull up such stuff intraoperatively in the OR if they encounter something unexpected. Watching a few of those videos is a good start. Just be judicious with your Googling. There’s some pretty sick stuff out there.
