Before antibiotics, chronic osteomyelitis was a surgical disease treated almost entirely with steel. The dead bone had to come out, the cavity had to be laid open, and the instruments that did that work — long serrated grasping forceps and nibbling punches — were among the most-used items in any nineteenth-century orthopaedic set. Antibiotics changed […]
Sequestrum Forceps and Bone Nibblers: Osteomyelitis Instruments Read More »
If you could only buy three pliers to start an orthodontic practice, which three? Ask five orthodontists and you will get the same answer four times: Weingart, distal end cutter, bird beak. Everything else — Jarabak, Adams, three-prong, band pusher, ligature director — is added as the case mix demands it. Those three cover placement,
Orthodontic Pliers: Weingart, Distal End Cutter and Bird Beak Read More »
Start with the numbers, because gauge selection decides more about specimen quality than technique does. Gauge Outer diameter Common lengths Typical patient 8G 4.19 mm 100 mm (4″) Large adult, obese posterior iliac crest, core needed for tumour staging 11G 3.05 mm 100 mm, 150 mm (4″, 6″) Standard adult — the default in most
Bone Marrow Biopsy Needles: Jamshidi Sizes and Technique Read More »
A 3 cm vermilion border laceration, a child under sedation, and a resident who has just grabbed a pair of toothed forceps to hold the flap. Watch the tissue afterwards: two crush marks either side of the repair, right where the scar will sit. That is the argument for skin hooks in one sentence. The
Skin Hooks in Surgery: Gillies, Joseph and Double-Prong Patterns Read More »
Latissimus dorsi behind. Pectoralis major in front. The horizontal level of the nipple below, the axilla above. That quadrilateral — conventionally called the safe triangle — is the whole reason a chest drain tray looks the way it does. The anatomy dictates the tray. Every choice among chest drain insertion instruments follows from it: access
Chest Drain Insertion Set: Thoracostomy Instrument Guide Read More »
The Chamberlen family kept their forceps design secret for roughly 150 years, arriving at deliveries with the instrument in a locked box and clearing the room before using it. When the design finally became public in the eighteenth century, the basic architecture it established — two separated blades that articulate around the fetal head —
Obstetric Forceps: Wrigley vs Simpson vs Neville-Barnes Read More »
Expert guides, procurement advice, and clinical insights from Fizza Surgical
Is flash sterilization still allowed? It is the question every new theatre manager asks, and the honest answer is: the word is gone, the practice is not, and…
A scrub nurse setting up for a laparotomy pours warm saline into a deep steel bowl on a ring stand beside the back table. Twenty minutes later the…
A primary total knee arthroplasty usually goes through somewhere between five and ten trays, depending on the implant system and how the hospital packs it. It surprises procurement…
A night nurse wheels a patient to the bathroom, one hand on the patient's elbow and the other on the drip stand. The stand carries two litre bags…
InstrumentTypical lengthMain job in a routine appointment Heavy-duty toenail nipper (concave or straight jaw)14–16 cmReducing thickened, dystrophic or fungal nails Fine-point nail nipper11–13 cmCorners, sulci, small and brittle…
A cow with a retained magnet problem, a ewe flock due for a mineral bolus, a calf that will not suck. Three different jobs, one family of tools:…
Many of the staining complaints that reach an instrument maker are not steel problems at all. They are water problems. A tray comes back from a hospital with…
A three-centimetre ventral midline incision on a six-month-old bitch. Linea alba opened, and the uterine horns are nowhere in view. This is the moment the spay hook earns…
InstrumentMain jobTypical form Teat cannula (milk tube)Drain milk past an obstruction or injured canalBlunt, round-tipped tube, 50–80 mm, side ports Teat dilatorGradually open a narrowed streak canalTapered probe…
The CBCT shows 6 mm of bone under the planned first-molar site. The sinus floor is flat, the membrane looks thin but healthy, and the patient does not…
Every other pathogen your sterile services department handles has a membrane, a nucleic acid, or a protein coat that steam at 134 °C will wreck. A prion has…
A porcelain-fused-to-metal crown on a vital second premolar, cemented eight years ago with zinc phosphate, needs to come off intact because the patient wants it re-used as a…
