Mallet mass, striking-face material, tamp tip diameter, tip serration pattern. Four variables, and getting any one of them wrong turns a controlled impaction into a split cortex or a fractured graft bed. A bone impactor is the crudest-looking thing in an orthopaedic tray and the one most dependent on matched pairing. A 32 oz mallet on […]
Bone Impactors, Tamps and Mallets: Force Control in Orthopaedics Read More »
A 4.5 mm cortex screw sits 3 mm proud of the far cortex on a distal femur plate. Nobody notices in theatre. Six weeks later the patient presents with anterior knee irritation and the screw comes out under a second anaesthetic. The plate was fine. The reduction was fine. The measurement was wrong. Screw length is one
Depth Gauges, Taps and Drill Guides in Fracture Fixation Read More »
The instrument is a trephine — a hollow cylinder with a circular cutting edge, the same principle used to bore holes in bone since antiquity, scaled down to a few millimetres and fitted to a pencil handle. Its whole clinical value comes from one property: it removes a full-thickness core, epidermis through dermis into subcutaneous
Biopsy Punches and Skin Punch Instruments: Sizes and Technique Read More »
Why does a fracture clinic still keep a rack of hand shears when there is an electric cast saw on the trolley? Because the saw only solves part of the problem. It cuts a groove; it does not open one. It is useless on a wet or freshly applied cast, hazardous over a bony prominence,
Plaster and Cast Removal Instruments: Shears, Saws and Spreaders Read More »
A district hospital amputation tray usually runs to somewhere between 22 and 35 pieces. The number varies less than you would expect between a trauma unit in Europe and a rural surgical centre in West Africa, because the operation itself has not changed: control the vessels, divide the muscle at the level you intend to
Amputation Instrument Set: Contents and Blade Selection Read More »
An axillary abscess drained through a 1 cm stab incision rarely gives up everything on the first pass. Pus sits behind fibrinous septa in loculated pockets, and a scalpel pushed any deeper is working blind next to the axillary vein and the intercostobrachial nerve. That is the moment a specific instrument earns its place on
Lister Sinus Forceps and Probes: Tract Exploration Tools 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…
