Expert guides and buying advice for surgical instruments used in hospitals worldwide.
Sopher or Bierer? On most gynaecology trays both are present, both look broadly similar at a glance, and which one the surgeon reaches for is often habit rather than a decision. The jaws are not interchangeable, and the difference shows up exactly when it matters — on retained tissue that is adherent rather than loose. […]
Ovum Forceps: Bierer vs Sopher vs Winter Patterns Read More »
Rib shears are among the shortest-lived instruments in a cardiothoracic tray, and almost every failure traces back to the same thing: the wrong pattern was reached for. There are four in common circulation — Gluck, Sauerbruch, Giertz-Stille and Bethune — and they differ by nearly a factor of two in overall length. That difference is
Rib Shears Guide: Bethune, Gluck and Sauerbruch Patterns Read More »
Steam sterilisation works on roughly ninety percent of what passes through a hospital CSSD. The other ten percent is the problem — and it is the expensive ten percent. Flexible endoscopes. Camera heads. Powered handpieces with sealed bearings. Battery housings. Polymer-bodied laparoscopic instruments. Anything with an electronic component, an adhesive bond, or a plastic that
Low-Temperature Sterilization: EtO vs Hydrogen Peroxide Read More »
Enrique Finochietto designed his rib spreader in Buenos Aires in the 1930s, and the geometry has barely changed since. That is unusual. Most instruments from that era have been redesigned three times over. The Finochietto survived because the problem it solves — holding two ribs apart against the elastic recoil of the chest wall, for
Finochietto Rib Spreader: Sizes, Blades and Selection Read More »
A patient arrives with a completely occluded canal, a history of failed syringing at their general practice, and a tympanic membrane nobody has seen in six weeks. The whole examination and the whole treatment come out of a tray that holds perhaps eight items, most of them unchanged in design since the 1890s. Aural instruments
Aural Instruments: Ear Specula, Jobson Horne and Tilley Forceps Read More »
How many failed cannulation attempts before you open the skin? It is not an abstract question. In a shocked, vasoconstricted, hypovolaemic patient the peripheral veins have collapsed, ultrasound guidance is showing a vessel that will not hold a catheter, and the intraosseous route has either failed or is contraindicated at the sites available. At that
Venesection Cut-Down Set: Emergency Vascular Access Instruments Read More »
