T
he persistent pain above her ribcage made sleeping at night
nearly impossible. "My primary care physician dismissed it
as a muscular injury that would correct itself," says Angela
Hohn, RN, BSN, BS, CNOR, FCN, a perioperative nurse in
the Atlanta VA Health Care System. "So did I."
In February 2020, after months of agony, Ms. Hohn finally went to
the ER, where a CT scan revealed a lesion on her right lung. The next
day, a pulmonologist identified the growth as a tumor and suggested it
was malignant. A biopsy confirmed stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer.
Lung cancer? Impossible.
Ms. Hohn was an avid runner who had always taken preventative
medicine seriously. She'd never smoked, nor lived with anyone
who did. "I was very active, vibrant and health-conscious, doing all
the right things," says Ms. Hohn. "When I got the diagnosis, I simply
didn't believe it."
She was so blindsided by the news that she
thought her results had been confused with
those of another patient. Devastated, she
checked in with her primary care physi-
cian. "She said, 'Something's not right
here," recalls Ms. Hohn. "'You're on top
of your health and you live a clean
life. Have you ever considered that
your cancer was caused by expo-
sure to smoke at work?'"
The conversation caused
Ms. Hohn to reflect on her
career. She'd been an OR
nurse since 1979, start-
ing in England and
2 0 • O U T P A T I
E
N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A R C H 2 0 2 1
Breathing Life Into
Surgical Smoke Safety
A nurse's devastating lung cancer diagnosis inspired
an impassioned plea for evacuation legislation.
Joe Paone | Senior Associate Editor
IMPORTANT CAUSE Angela Hohn
wants surgical professionals to
understand the dangers of
surgical smoke and take
steps to protect themselves
from harm.
