is being made in convincing lawmakers in Oregon and Tennessee to
enact similar legislation, which could happen in 2020.
But why wait until a staff member suffers unnecessarily? Take a
stand against surgical smoke, so you and your staff can finally breathe
easier.
Realizing the risks
Qing Zhou, RN, BSN, CNOR, grew concerned about her surgical
team's exposure to surgical smoke back in 2008 when AORN began
raising awareness of the dangers to its members. It took several years
of talking about the issue with her colleagues at Kaiser Permanente
Irvine (Calif.) Medical Center to make change happen. "Our hospital is
a tobacco-free campus — you have to leave the campus to smoke a
cigarette," says Ms. Zhou. "We began to question the effects of surgi-
cal smoke in the OR and decided the campus should be free from
that, too.
"I've been an OR nurse more than 25 years and always felt like being
exposed to surgical smoke was just part of the job," continues Ms.
Zhou. "But after learning about the negative side effects, we took it
upon ourselves to create a smoke-free environment."
To make change happen, first find out how much your staff knows
about the dangers of surgical smoke. Ms. Prince used the online
polling tool SurveyMonkey to quiz her staff and found out only 1 in 3
had a basic understanding of the associated health hazards or were
familiar with the contaminants that surgical smoke contains.
Lack of knowledge about the dangers of surgical smoke appears to
be a common issue. "When we first presented to our staff about surgi-
cal smoke, they began to realize maybe that's why they had
headaches, burning eyes or other symptoms," says Lauren McNulty,
BA, BSN, RN, an OR nurse at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in
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