INSTRUMENT OF THE WEEK: ESMARCH TOURNIQUET

Have you ever wondered how we can see past all the blood in surgery?

Commonly, we use something called a tourniquet. You have probably heard of this term before, but typically in the context of accidents happening and having to stop the person from losing too much blood before they can get help.

This isn't too much different, except it is in a very controlled environment and we don't typically use it to stop them from losing blood, but rather to get better visualization at the body part we are operating--typically a limb: arm, hand, leg, or foot.

We wrap this blue esmarch starting at the fingers or toes and wrap it tightly around as we work our way up the limb towards the heart. In this video, you can see an example of how we do this.