Surgical Knife

wuyeah

wuyeah

Joined
Sep 29, 2005
Messages
1,665
As I understand, all blade will eventually wear out, needs to be sharpen. For surgery doctors in hospital..........Who sharpen their blade:confused:

Interns? They have a special team at basement doing job as such?
Do you need a license to get a set of real surgical knife?
 
Doctors use one use scalpel blades. They use a single molecule thick piece of obsidian for the most precise scalpels. They can be purchased at any medical supply company without a license. Think exacto knife with a much thinner blade of surgical steel. (Obsidian scalpels are very expensive and rare, they were used in things like optic and neuro surgery before lasers and such. I do not know if they are still in use but I wouldnt be suprised. They would be much harder to find that there steel counterparts.) Scalpels that I have seen more reccently have been a 2 part disposable unit. The blade is snapped off in a sharps container and the handle is tossed. I think they sell them like this now and you may have trouble finding the blades alone. I used to be a Piercer and have seen guys who specialize in scarring use saclpels to good effect (do not try this at home).
 
Scalpel blades are machine-sharpened at the factory. A doctor typically uses a blade for just one or two cuts and then takes another. That's because these blades are extraordinarily sharp, but the compromise is that they don't retain their edge. There's also always a concern about spreading infection. You can spread infection even within a patient. A germ that is harmless in one part of the body can cause a deadly infection in another. So, doctors are constantly switching to a new, sterile blade.

The modern scalpel has a disposable plastic handle and the whole thing is just discarded (actually sent to be incinerated). When a lot of leverage is required, they still use metal-handled scalpels, but the blades are always disposable. In fact, even when a metal-handled scalpel is used, it's very often just sent to be incinerated; the ten dollars it costs is not worth taking any risk over. And now you know one small reason why surgery is so expensive.
 
I had the pleasure of Watching two surgical procedures this monday and the blades I saw were of the thwo piece disposable variety mentiones above.

I have also seen for some procedures including a circumsision, a scalpel in a box cutter like handle that slides forward with click intervals to vary blade length.

In the old days The hospital had staff who sharpened scalpels and for that matter syringe needles.
 
I have a buddy who is a Doc who uses the disposable scalpels as deer field dressing knives. he uses one to open the deer and another one or two to finish them out, at .90 cents a piece in bulk, they are pretty cheap.
 
The only things that need sharpening are the orthopedics tools (chisels and whatnot). As has been said, everything else is very disposable. A lot depends on surgeon preference. Some don't mind the disposables, but many prefer having a metal handle.
 
Guntotin_fool said:
I have a buddy who is a Doc who uses the disposable scalpels as deer field dressing knives. he uses one to open the deer and another one or two to finish them out, at .90 cents a piece in bulk, they are pretty cheap.
Click to expand...

Did it look anything like this?

yhst-35864383674868_1920_125246


From http://www.havalon.com/xt-60knp.html

Regards,
3G
 
Scalpel blades are disposeable blades. There are a couple different knife handles that are used, and the blades are changed. It depends on the type of surgery that one is doing, but some surgeries, one goes through MANY blades. I used to be a Surgical Technologist; and as such, I am the one who would change the blades. All the knife handles that I have used ARE metal, and you just place a blade on that. Yes, there are the plastic handled knives, and you just throw out the whole thing. But in my 11 years as a Surgical technologist, I have only used those once.
 
BigJimSlade said:
Doctors use one use scalpel blades. They use a single molecule thick piece of obsidian for the most precise scalpels. They can be purchased at any medical supply company without a license. Think exacto knife with a much thinner blade of surgical steel. (Obsidian scalpels are very expensive and rare, they were used in things like optic and neuro surgery before lasers and such. I do not know if they are still in use but I wouldnt be suprised. They would be much harder to find that there steel counterparts.) Scalpels that I have seen more reccently have been a 2 part disposable unit. The blade is snapped off in a sharps container and the handle is tossed. I think they sell them like this now and you may have trouble finding the blades alone. I used to be a Piercer and have seen guys who specialize in scarring use saclpels to good effect (do not try this at home).
Click to expand...

When my wife got her scarification the artist used disposable, two piece, plastic handled scalpels. Do not try this at home, ideed.

Frank
 
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