My almost 3 year old face planted onto the corner of our stone fireplace this morning. Had a nasty cut above his eye that wouldn't stop bleeding for an hour, so we took him into urgent care. Had a nervous looking PA tell us that we'd either need to straight jacket hold him down while she stitched it up (after proclaiming that kids "make her nervous"), or we'd have to take him to the ER, where they'd likely sedate him to put in stitches. Remembered that my mom's neighbor is a trauma surgeon, and felt very uncomfortable with both options presented to us (nervous PA being around our kid, our kid being sedated). Called my mom, let her know the situation, she called her neighbor who said he'd be happy to look at it & advise the best course of action. He came over, said that steri strips would probably work just fine. He washed it, was pretty matter of fact with our kid, and bandaged him right up. Kid handled it with fairly minimal crying. Had some M and Ms, played with his grandma, and came home very tired.
Mom's neighbor saved us an ER visit, possible sedation, and at the very least, saved us a botched stitching job by a PA who looked as if she didn't care for kids.
Note: this was never about saving money, but it turned out that we got lucky in that regard. I was most concerned about kid being seriously traumatized by an inexperienced and uncomfortable medical professional, as well as possibly having to be sedated. His pediatrician wasn't open today, and wouldn't be tomorrow, either.