A P R I L 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 7 9
A
bout 20 years ago I left full-time hospital nursing for a
perioperative education position, but continued on as
an OR per diem. One time I'd been away from the OR
for a couple of months when I worked a day of cases
that used a lot of electrosurgery. At the end of the day,
walking to my car, I thought I was coming down with the flu. I had a
sore throat, my nose was burning, my chest felt tight. This discomfort
passed in a day or so, but a month later — after another day's work in
the OR — I felt it again. That's when I connected surgical smoke with
the symptoms I was suffering, and when I began to get involved in
surgical smoke awareness programs.
Where There's Smoke …
If you smell charred flesh in the OR,
you're probably inhaling invisible
toxic gases, too.
Brenda Ulmer, RN, MN, CNOR
Snellville, Ga.
• WORKPLACE HAZARD Breathing the smoke from 1 gram of cauterized tissue is comparable to smoking 6 unfiltered cigarettes in 15 minutes.
