as operating room
staff."
Ms. Fournier is nor-
mally "pretty
reserved," but she has
stepped up to champi-
on the cause. She and
her colleagues at the
Chestnut Operating
Room, a 12-OR hospi-
tal outpatient depart-
ment connected to the
main hospital, are
hoping a grassroots
effort will propel
change. They've had
large and small group
discussions, and creat-
ed bulletin boards and
posters at the scrub sink to help educate and inform.
"We have brought our concerns to management as well as [to] sur-
geons and anesthesia providers to work together to implement a
plan of action to use smoke evacuation for all smoke-producing
procedures, both open and laparoscopic," writes Ms. Fournier.
Pencils with built-in suction
Part of the problem is surgeons are not fond of the old-fashioned
smoke evacuation system currently in use at the facility. The evac-
uator comes in 3 separate pieces that snap onto the cautery pencil.
It's loud, the tubing is bulky, the filter is attached to a video tower
5 6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A P R I L 2 0 1 8
• IGNITING CHANGE Can OR nurses convince surgeons to use smoke-evacuating
devices?
