Amputated limb question (maybe TMI)

There’s a woman at work who has an amputated arm. Yesterday I happened to notice she had two circles at the end of the stump. From the size and location, it appeared to me to be the ends of her arm bone where it was cut off. But I always thought that when a limb was amputated part of the flesh was used to cover the bone so it was not exposed. Is it likely for somebody to have an arm amputated in such a way that part of the bone is visible?

I don’t know anything about amputations, but I can’t imagine they would leave exposed bone. Seems like that would just be asking for an infection. But there is a guy working at a place that I eat that has his arm amputated at the elbow and on the end of it, he has what appears to be a fingernail. Perhaps it’s similar to what you’re seeing.

It might be for mounting the prothesis. WAG.

Are you sure she had an amputation? Is it possible that she was born without an arm? There are cases where a person is born without a limb, or the limb is misshapen in some way and is removed, and the bone still keeps growing, even though there isn’t anywhere for it to go. In this case, the bone has to be regularly shaven down to stop it from breaking through the skin.

Another possibility is it’s just weird scar tissue.

The guy with a fingernail at the end of his stump sounds more like someone who was born with a deformed limb (no lower arm, with partial fingers at the elbow) than someone who had an amputation.

I don’t really know anything more about her arm than what I mentioned in the OP. All fo the speculations made so far are possible. But is it also possible that somebody could have an arm amputated and have the bone end left exposed?

Probably not. The risk for infection would be huge.

Here is an article discussing transdermal mounts for prosthetic devices.