talks: The ablation of 1
gram of tissue pro-
duces a smoke plume
with an equivalent
mutagenicity to 6 unfil-
tered cigarettes, and
that each year, an esti-
mated 500,000 work-
ers, including sur-
geons, nurses, anesthe-
siologists and surgical
technologists, are exposed to laser or electrosurgical smoke.
"I tried to scare them into supporting me," says Ms. York, with only a
hint of sarcasm. She was surprised to learn that some board and com-
mittee members didn't know about all the dangers of surgical smoke:
"They were shocked about the things I told them."
The hospital's higher-ups were coming around to the idea of making
surgical smoke evacuation mandatory, but Ms. York still had to con-
vince surgeons wary of using loud, bulky evacuators. Her plan was
somewhat unorthodox.
"We removed all reading material from our bulletin boards and
break room," she says, "and replaced it with literature about the dan-
gers of surgical smoke."
She also gathered as many trial smoke evacuators as she could from
manufacturers and spread them out across the break room table.
Members of the OR team, including those hesitant surgeons, had to
pick up a device in order to find a place to eat. "That forced everyone
to share what they liked and didn't like about the different options,"
says Ms. York. "It got people talking about the topic."
Based on those impromptu chat and chews, the surgical team set-
5 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
• SELLING SAFETY Hesitant surgeons had to be convinced that surgical smoke
evacuators like this one wouldn't interfere with their preferred way to operate.
StarNews
photo
by
Robbie
Greenspan/StarNews
