Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Battle Post-op Pain Without Opioids - April 2016 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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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.

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