That's what happened to me. I was able to lean
heavily on Brenda C. Ulmer, RN, MN, CNOR, in
gathering research and making sure the verbiage on
our facility's smoke evacuation policy was just
right. As a member of the Georgia Smoke Coalition
and long-time advocate of smoke-free ORs, Brenda
had no shortage of resources to help us on our jour-
ney, and she was instrumental in helping me pro-
vide the peer-reviewed articles that were most rele-
vant and most likely to have an impact on reluctant
surgeons. At around the same time we were rolling
out our smoke-evacuation initiative, we created a
local AORN chapter here in southern Georgia that
allowed us to collaborate with other facilities that
had similar initiatives in place. We even brought in
outside representatives — like Kay Ball, PhD, RN,
CNOR, FAAN, a renowned speaker and chair-
woman of AORN's Smoke Evacuation Task Force
from 2007 to 2009 — to help educate staff and drum
up support for our initiative.
It's also important to lean on your vendor reps
whenever possible. As surgical facility leaders, we
often get close with our reps and, in many cases,
these individuals can provide invaluable insight
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beyond the nuts and bolts of their
products. Of course, you have to
be careful; vendors ultimately
have a responsibility to sell prod-
ucts. However, during our trialing
process, two reps were passion-
ate about smoke evacuation and
didn't push their product on me at
all. They provided neutral educa-
tional materials and research
without any expectation of our
facility using their product.
The ultimate reward
As we slowly move away from
the survival mode we were thrust
into thanks to a once-in-a-genera-
tion pandemic, we plan on push-
ing ahead with our smoke evacu-
ation efforts. That's a testament
to our staff's tenacity and dedica-
tion to keep our ORs as safe as
possible for staff and patients alike. The buzz sur-
rounding our efforts is certainly growing. The CMO
I cornered during that morning safety huddle
recently called attention to our smoke-evac efforts
and gave me a personal shout-out for refusing to
give up on the project.
That was certainly rewarding, but the most fulfill-
ing part of this journey has been how it's impacted
our staff and changed their perception of surgical
smoke. Colleagues have reached out to me and said
they didn't even realize the dangers associated with
surgical plume until it was brought to their atten-
tion. One staff member even approached me and
said, "Ashlea, you know smoke is why I wound up
leaving the OR, right? I was using three inhalers
because I couldn't breathe, and I've even been
kicked out of some rooms because I couldn't stop
coughing and hacking."
It's stories like these that remind me of why I'm
doing this in the first place.
OSM
Ms. Blevins (blevinsparty@gmail.com) is the
surgical services nurse educator at South Georgia
Medical Center in Valdosta.
Several states have already banned
surgical smoke in the OR, and that list is
only going to grow in the near future.
