Best Tricks to Remember Surgical Instruments!

With thousands of surgical tools out there, remembering names, functions, and when each instrument is used or needed can feel completely overwhelming. But don't worry, I'm about to give you some proven strategies to make it easier and fun to learn surgical instruments. Hey everyone, welcome back to The Sterile Guy, your number one source for sterile processing education. I'm Brandon, AKA The Sterile Guy. And if you're not subscribed to the channel, well, you should be. Please hit that subscribe button to join the movement towards better education and pay for sterile processing technicians. Today, we're tackling one of the biggest challenges every sterile tech and surgical team member faces, and that's memorizing surgical instruments and their functions. Plus, we'll go over some of the most commonly used instruments, from Babcock forceps to Richardson retractors and more. So stick around because this is going to be a game changer for you. Before we jump in, I wanna share about the surgical instrument flashcards you can get on The Sterile Guy website that contains 100 super high quality flashcards, not only identifying the instruments themselves with high quality pictures, but information on which specialties each instrument is used in. First link in the description if you want to snag a set of those. Instead of just memorizing random names, we're going to use a method I like to call FAVE, F-A-V-E. This stands for function, associate, visualization, and explanatory. This acronym has been critical in my ability to learn and retain information over my career. We may have certain ways we primarily learn, but often we need multiple ways depending on what we are learning and how our memory responds to it. Let me quickly explain each letter in the acronym and then we'll dive deeper into memorizing instruments. Starting with F, function. With function, we are going to focus on the functional purpose of the instrument that is in question. We will group instruments by function, not just by name. A, associate. This is a great strategy in order to use the brain's natural desire to associate things. We can link instrument names to something familiar, something that starts with the same letter or maybe even almost sounds the same. V, visualization. We can visualize how and where an instrument is used in surgery, which can help to spark a more efficient memory when we are recalling that memory according to the steps in a procedure. Basically, if I know the next step in the procedure requires us to be able to see the cervix, I need a tool designed to provide access and visual exposure to the cervix. And since I know that, oh yeah, I need a speculum of some kind. And because this is Dr. So-and-so, I know he likes to use the Graves Speculum. E, explanatory. With explanatory, this is where we hammer memories into our head by deeply understanding everything about the instrument that we are trying to memorize. This uses asking why and how questions. The more you know about something, the more ingrained your memory about it will be. If you have a coworker you occasionally see, you may not remember their names very well. But if you have a coworker of which you know that has two kids, they bring their lunch to work every day, they love the role of working with endoscopes, and they have worked at your facility for five years now, it's quite a bit more likely you'll recall their name. You know too much about them to not have their name stored in your head somewhere. Now, these are just four simple strategies to learn instruments, but please know there are many other learning strategies that you can use. Leave a comment sharing the strategies that you've used to memorize instruments or other things. Now, let's break these down while learning some of the most important instruments you'll handle in the sterile processing department. Let's start with function. One initial way to learn instruments is by grouping them by their function. Instead of memorizing random names of a bunch of random instruments, work on learning them by their functionality first. What I mean by this is spend time learning a bunch of scissors before you jump to clamps and retractors, et cetera. Spending time focusing only on scissors will deepen your recognition of the very small differences between a lot of these different scissors. Let's do some examples. Clamps or the holders. These instruments grasp, hold, and occlude, which means to block tissue or vessels. Mosquito hemostat, used for clamping small blood vessels. Coker clamp, features serrated jaws and a rat tooth to hold tough tissue. Scissors. These are the cutters. Let's move to scissors. Scissors are used for cutting tissue, sutures, or other materials. Scissors are tricky and usually need more time for studying because initially they can easily look identical. Studying scissors as a category all by themselves will greatly help you memorize them. Metzenbaum scissors. These are long with thin and short blades for delicate tissue dissection. Iris scissors. Super sharp, tiny, and used for fine, precise cuts. Let's move into retractors, which are the exposers. Retractors help to pull back tissues to expose the surgical site. Richardson retractor. This is a deeper retractor for abdominal exposure. Often it is double-ended, but it can be single-ended. Wheatlaner retractor. This is a self-retaining retractor with either sharp or blunt prongs. Now let's move into forceps, which are known as the graspers. Forceps help to manipulate, grasp, or hold tissue. Now there's a big difference between clamps and forceps. You can differentiate these by their intended purpose. Babcock forceps. Babcock forceps are used for holding delicate tissue like the bowel. Now you might ask, why is a Babcock called a forcep when it can clearly clamp down? This goes back to the intended purpose. We don't use Babcock forceps to occlude anything. They are designed to grab and manipulate bowel. Their ability to clamp is irrelevant. DeBakey forceps. These are used to grasp and manipulate tissue or even to grasp vessels and using a bipolar to cauterize them. Even though a DeBakey can occlude a vessel if you keep it grasped there, that's not its intended purpose. To know if it is truly a clamp. A clamp is an instrument that can be applied and continue to occlude even when the surgeon has let go of the instrument. If the surgeon lets go of the DeBakey, the vessel continues to bleed. Here's one to throw you for a loop. Allis clamp. Has sharp teeth and is used for grasping tougher tissue like fascia. You might be asking, wait a second, an allis clamp doesn't occlude anything. It is a grasper and a manipulator. Yes, that's correct. Because the proper nomenclature for an allis is forceps. Look it up in Pilling, Medline, Asculap, V. Mueller, McKesson, they all call it allis forceps. That one was a trick for you because so many people in the surgical field refer to this as an allis clamp. And it is a pet peeve of mine because it is not a clamp, it is a forcep. So if you can first work on categorizing instruments into their functions and learn them in those groups like learning clamps, then learning scissors, then learning retractors, et cetera, you'll be able to more easily distinguish the details that separate each instrument design. Now let's move on to A, which is associate. One of the best ways to remember instruments or anything for that matter is by linking their names to something familiar. Memorizing by linking is an incredibly powerful approach. Some of the leading memory competitors use association to solidify memory in shorter periods of time. Did you know there's actually memory competitions where people compete to see who can memorize things faster? And a lot of the strategies these use are associations. Let's start with Army-Navy retractor, a simple double-ended retractor used in many surgical procedures. This one was always super easy for me to remember because I associated the ends as being one of each of the branches of the military, being Army and Navy. And since the Army is obviously better than the Navy, the bigger side is the Army. Yankower suction. Another way to associate is by how similar things sound. Sounds like yank out, used to suction fluids. The type of suction is yanking out the fluids. Yankower, yank out. Mayo scissors. These have strong, thick blades for cutting tough tissue and sutures. A trick I always used for these was thinking about spreading mayo on a piece of bread with a butter knife. Butter knives are thicker and less sleek than a normal cutting knife, just like mayo scissor blades are bigger and fatter. Much beefier than, say, a meth scissor for sure. Bayonet forceps. Picture an old musket with a bayonet attached. It makes that jump up or jump down, which makes the forcep look like a rifle with a bayonet attached. By connecting the names to something familiar, it sticks in your memory much better. Now let's move on to visualization. Visualization usually comes in handy when we have spent some time learning instruments beforehand. With visualization, now we'll be applying what we've learned and think about how these instruments are actually used in surgery. Remembering step-by-step can help us visualize the instrument and sometimes help the memory to grasp the name simultaneously. Now this works really well for surgical technicians who spend a lot of time in surgery, but hopefully your manager allows you to go and visit and watch some procedures because it's really important that you know the instruments you're cleaning and how those are used. That really helps with the cleaning process to know how those are used. So the more you can get into surgery and observe, the better. Let's think about a laparoscopic cholecystectomy or a gallbladder removal. First, I'm gonna talk about a trocar. We have to get into the belly without a big incision because this is a laparoscopic procedure. Visualize what you need to facilitate that entry of instruments into the belly. Several small holes, something to allow instruments in without damaging the surrounding tissue. That's a trocar. Graspers, like a Babcock. Once you get into the belly, you're going to need items to grasp tissue and organs to move them around and expose areas. You'll obviously be moving bowel if you're in the abdomen. So what is a good clamp for manipulating bowel? This one works well with association as well because it starts with a B too. So Babcock, bowel. Mayo-Hagar needle holder. We are going to be suturing up those holes. So we will need something to drive the needle, but not too small and not too big. So not a Webster needle holder or a Heaney needle holder. We need a Mayo-Hagar needle holder, which is a pretty standard plain vanilla needle holder. Let's talk about a C-section for instance, a cesarean delivery. Within a C-section, we're definitely gonna use Mayo scissors. We are going to be cutting fascia because we need quicker access to the uterus, which is a big, tough portion of tissue. So you'll need beefy scissors for that. Now remember, Mayo scissors are thick like a butter knife. If I know I'm cutting fascia, iris scissors won't cut it. See what I did there? Another instrument you'll need in a C-section is Alice forceps. We will need an instrument of some kind to hold tough uterine tissue back. You'll need a forcep with teeth, but not super aggressive and not designed to occlude vessels. Alice forcep. You're also gonna need DeBakey forceps. You'll be handling bleeding vessels and more delicate tissue that you need to be able to hold and manipulate without big teeth that could damage the tissue. Visualizing the procedure and the instruments in action makes memorization somewhat easier. It's like visualizing a camping trip and the activities and things you'll be doing as you go. If you're going to be making meals, you'll need something to store the food, something to keep the food cold, something to cook the food in, something to scoop the food with. I think you get the idea. If I am cooking stew for the whole family and I bring a tiny pot, we're gonna have a problem. Now let's move on to our last strategy, which is explanatory. Knowledge is power. This concept is used quite a bit with medical doctors as they learn through school and residency. It's not enough for them to simply memorize words. They need to know the ins and outs of the words and everything associated with it. If you ask a medical doctor to explain a certain drug they prescribed, it's a fair bet they can not only name it, they can state how often it is taken and at what dose and why. They can describe what its intended purpose is in the body, how it works, and what its side effects are. Because they know so much about it, it is much harder for them to forget it. You might stumble on smaller details like dosage or timing of dosage, but you'll never forget the main points like what it's called and why we use it. Another way of understanding the term explanatory is to think of it as teaching. Studies show that the more you teach something to others, the better you retain it. So with using explanatory, it's basically just teaching to yourself by asking yourself the why and how questions. All right, let's do a quick recap of the acronym we learned today, FAVE. And if I didn't already mention it, this is my FAVE or it studying strategy. Again, see what I did there? Function, grouping by an instrument's intended purpose. Clamps, scissors, retractors. Associate, linking names to familiar words or familiar appearances. Yank our, yank out. Visualization, visualizing instruments in actual surgery going through the procedure step by step. Explanatory, asking yourself the why and how questions to know the instruments in greater detail. By using these techniques, you can master surgical instruments at a significantly faster rate. Besides these four memorization techniques I discussed, I'd love to hear about techniques that you've used that have worked well. Share your ideas and successes in the comments down below. If this video helped you, go ahead and subscribe to the channel. Give the video a like and hit that notification bell so you never miss a future video. Do you have questions or video suggestions? Drop those down in the comments too. I'd love to hear from you. I wanna thank you for watching the video. Good luck learning all those instruments. And as always, I will catch you in the next one.