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oxygen from an open source on this patient? And more fundamental-
ly, if the answer is yes, is it needed, or can this patient be safely main-
tained with fresh air delivered from the anesthesia machine?
The questions are detailed in a really nice flowchart with a succinct
list of questions provided by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation
(APSF) (
tinyurl.com/l5lz4ky)
. ECRI Institute's free surgical-fire-preven-
tion posters (
ecri.org/surgical_fires
) also address these issues.
Q
Are anesthesia providers being adequately trained to reduce
supplemental oxygen administration to the lowest levels needed?
MB:
The excellent work of the APSF is going a long way
toward pushing out the needed training and resources to that commu-
nity of healthcare professionals. If anesthesia providers are exposed
to the information, they have adequate training. Implementing the
training is up to each provider.
Q
How do surgical fires change OR staff who've experienced them?
MB:
The majority take the unfortunate experience to heart as
a learning experience. They get training and move on. But
they absolutely devastate others. I know of one case where a member
of the OR team committed suicide after being involved in a fatal oper-
ating room fire. Some OR staff have been so upset that during the lec-
tures I frequently give in hospitals after an incident, where I show a
recreation of a surgical fire from the anesthesia patient safety video,
they have to leave the room and come back in after the video's over.
They just can't deal with it. Even though most surgical fires last only
about 4 or 5 seconds, they change lives.
Another common theme from surgeons, nurses and anesthesiolo-
gists has been: I've done 5,000 of these surgeries. What happened in
this case that caused my patient's throat to catch fire during a ton-
O R F I R E S
