I had the pleasure of speaking with Major April Ritter, DNAP, CRNA, recently on the topic of operating room fires… which is a bit of a hot topic in the perioperative world.

Dr Ritter completed her Masters of Nursing Science (MSN) and Doctorate of Nurse Anesthesia Practice at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr Ritter is also a Major in the United States Army Reserves. Prior to becoming a CRNA, she served for eight years as an active duty commissioned officer in the Army with experience as a critical care Registered Nurse and flight nurse with the 82nd Airborne Dustoff medevac team. She served two combat tours prior to transferring to the Army Reserves and returning to school for her master’s and doctorate degrees in anesthesia.

She was recently involved in an operating room procedure in which there was a fire. We discuss the case at length and then dive into the background on OR and airway fires including contributing factors, prevention, crisis management and the importance of critical incident debriefing. You don’t want to miss this red hot podcast… hopefully the lessons here will smolder in your memory moving forward and help you turn up the heat on your fire prevention practices!

Resources:

Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation Fire Safety Video

APSF Fire Safety Video Contributes to 44% Decrease in Intraoperative Fires Since 2011

Anesthesia e-Nonymous – Virginia Commonwealth University