in the near future smoke evacuation will be mandated nationwide,"
says Ms. McNulty. "More awareness will spread with each state that
becomes smoke-free."
Local legislation can offer some credence to the studies you share
and the efforts you make, but mandatory smoke evacuation isn't
going to happen overnight in your state, if it happens at all. That's why
it's important to keep pushing for the change you want to make hap-
pen.
"We had already gone almost smoke-free at our hospital," says Ms.
Prince, referring to the mandatory smoke evacuation law legislators
passed in her home state of Colorado last March. "Staff drove the
removal of surgical smoke from our ORs. Their persistence and
refusal to work with surgeons who did not use smoke evacuators
completely changed the culture in our hospital."
OSM
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 4 3
I've always felt like being
exposed to surgical smoke
was just part of the job.
— Qing Zhou, RN, BSN, CNOR