it's "increased a great deal" and
16.48% say it's "increased." Only
about 7% of respondents say usage
has decreased, suggesting that
once facilities adopt safety
scalpels, their surgeons will contin-
ue to use them, as these write-in
responses illustrate.
"At this point they are used to
safety scalpels and it seems like
just second nature," says one
respondent. Another strong-arms
her surgeons: "We just muscled
them onto the trays. In other
words, we put them in place and
didn't offer many options." And
finally, this facility gave its docs an ultimatum: "We adopted the policy
with the chief of surgery's buy-in. It was use them or don't do sur-
gery."
Many respondents cite age as a factor. The older a surgeon is, the
more he'll resist safety scalpels by rolling out the same tired, hard-
to-shake excuses: they're too dull, too light, too difficult to activate
and too obtrusive (the safety shield blocks my line of sight).
"It's a mixed bag. The older surgeons do not feel they are necessary.
The younger, fresh-out-of-residency surgeons feel that everyone should
use them," says Jimmy Henderson, materials manager at the
Outpatient Surgery Center of Jonesboro (Ark.).
Says another respondent: "They were trained using the traditional
scalpels. The safety scalpels require them to make a change and the
feel is slightly different. Surgeons are reluctant to change unless man-
3 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 • M A Y 2 0 1 9
• HANDS-FREE Devices that allow for safer removal and
replacement of scalpel blades may also be of value.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN,
CNOR
