Speculum burn???

[silverbelle]

(I posted this on the OR nurse forum but thought others may know on this one), has anyone had a pt burned by a lady partsl speculum (during surgery) that had not cooled correctly? A lady says this happened to her but seems like the MD or RN who incerted it would have felt how hot it was??? Seems odd to me but I am not an OR nurse....

[Lisa, MA]

That seems odd to me. If it were that hot, how could the assistant or doc have touched it in the first place? It would have had to just come out of the autoclave, which is unlikely.

[NS2SBowman]

I have been a scrub tech for 10 yrs and when an instrument is that hot it would have had to have just come out of the autoclave. I always cool those instruments down with saline and have refused to give an imstrent to a surgeon due to it being too hot! Anything is possible though because one of our RNs accidentally burnt a patient with a saline bottle that had been in the top of our warmer. He used it to prop the patient's arm up while scrubbing the arm.

[twentytenRN]

Could have been caused from the bovie. If the cautery tip touches it and it's not a thermally insulated speculum, it could cause a burn any where along where the speculum was touching. I would hope this would not be the case as most physicians know this and only use the thermally insulated specs if they even think they will be using cautery. I can't imagine it being from a hot speculum fresh from the autoclave. Why does the patient think they were burned?

Sometimes during LEEP's or other procedures a Lugol's solution is applied to any bleeding areas and this sloughs off as a nasty dark color, could be why the patient thought they were burned??

Other times things are purposely burned using the bovie to cauterize bleeding.

[mickey_RN]

:eek::eek::crying2:

just imagine! OMG!