Good news, though: You can remove the inch-long tip and the pencil
will still evacuate the smoke at the site — just not quite as close, says
Ms. Fournier.
After the trials, the next step is for the OR director to talk with sur-
geons and anesthesia, stressing that they're moving toward evacuating
smoke on every case that has plume.
"It's something they don't want to do, but they have to do it," says
Ms. Fournier. "Just like the pushback we got with dry time with preps
— nobody wanted to wait 3 minutes, but now they do."
Not waiting around
Last year, both California and Rhode Island nearly passed laws requir-
ing surgical plume evacuation, but Ms. Fournier and her colleagues
A P R I L 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 9
To your OR staff
Do No
Harm
The OR should be a place of healing.
But in the presence of surgical smoke,
it can be a harmful environment to the
staff who breathe the equivalent of
27 to 30 cigarettes a day
1
.
Discover the impact of surgical smoke at EndSurgicalSmoke.org
1
Hill, D.S. et. Al., Surgical Smoke – A health hazard in the operating theatre. A study to quantify exposure and a survey of smoke extractor
systems in UK plastic surgery units. Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive, and Aesthetic Surgery 2012. doi:10.1016/j.bjps.2012.02.012
