Hello everybody. Mike here from the Surgtech Academy and today I'm going
to demonstrate how to dress a Mayo stand and one way to organize a Mayo
stand. Now there are many ways to organize back tables and Mayo stands. And
each hospital, and dare I say each surg tech, has the only way to do it. But in
reality I think there are two rules to remember that I teach my students. The
first rule is that there isn't a right and wrong way to do anything.
There is only sterile and non-sterile ways of doing things and as long as it's
sterile it will be safe and I think it's okay. The second rule is that you need to
set up in a way that makes you comfortable. One of the biggest obstacles
is to overcome anxiety. Whether you are nervous around a certain surgeon, or
whether it's a surgery that you haven't remembered or scrubbed much, in any case
set up in a way that you are familiar with and do what makes you comfortable.
Watch other surgical technologists to see how they set up and meld all those
techniques and makes this something that makes sense to you.
So first, my case is open, I've scrubbed my hands, I've gowned and gloved, and I
probably have organized part of my back table or maybe all of my back table. Now
normally I'd have a mask on but for educational purposes my mask is
off today. So now it's time to perform the first part of the demonstration and
dress the Mayo stand with a sterile Mayo stand cover. First I like to have my
students firmly grasp the Mayo stand cover and situate their hands over the
back table. Manufacturers have made it pretty error proof by putting the words
right hand, left hand directly on the Mayo stand cover. And I like to have the
students situate their hands over the back table so that when it comes time to
actually address the unsterile Mayo stand
they aren't preoccupied by moving their hands around and they might accidentally
contaminate themselves. So I address the Mayo stand from the front and place the
opening of the cover around the Mayo stand.
I grabbed the Mayo stand stand top. At this point you have good control of the
stand and you're fairly free from contamination. Next I place my foot on
one of the Mayo stand foot rest to prevent it from moving around. Then I
tell my students to belly up. By bellying up to the Mayo stand this prevents the
Mayo stand from falling down below waist level which will contaminate it. And then
continue to feed the cover over the Mayo stand. Now, I know a lot of surgical techs
dress the Mayo stand from the side and that's fine. But for new people and
students I think this method is the best because it doesn't open up the
possibility of presenting your back to the back table and accidentally
contaminating it. I'm gonna go ahead and put two towels over it. Two key points at
this time is I want to make sure to not let the cover or your hands drop below
the Mayo stand or below waist level. The second point I want to make is to make
sure that you stay on or behind the cuff of the Mayo stand and that ensures you
don't contaminate. So after the Mayo stand is completely covered place at
least two towels on it and make sure all the surfaces are covered. I've seen a lot
of different ways to do this. Some people like to tuck the towels in between the
tray and the stand and really they're all good techniques just as long as all
the edges are covered. Okay. Now that we have a sterile Mayo stand
let's begin to organize it. Now there are a lot of different ways to set up a Mayo
stand. I tend to be pretty simple in mine. There are people who like rolled towels on
their Mayo stand and there are those that don't. Do you want the blade closest
to you or furthest from you? You know, sharps container on the Mayo stand or
not? All of these are good questions and all of these techniques are good. And people
have good explanations for why they do what they do. Now for me, I teach not to
use a rolled towel on your Mayo stand. I don't, I think having a rolled towel you
can put a lot of instruments on there. But for me I like to be able to grab an
instrument without looking at it. So when I don't use a towel I know where
everything is on the Mayo stand. I like my knife blades furthest away from me.
It's the sharpest instrument on the Mayo stand and I like it furthest, the
most further, to reduce the risk of cutting myself.
Now, no matter if I use a towel or not, my setup is always gonna be the same. It's
gonna be scalpel, scissors, forceps, clamps, and hemostats. For this hernia setup I'm
gonna put up two number 3 knife handles, a curved Metzenbaum scissors, a straight
Mayo scissors, curved Mayo scissors, two DeBakey forceps, an Adson forceps
with teeth, two Kockers, two Allis and six Pean hemostats. I feel like I need to say a
partridge in a pear tree after that. So you could use criles in place of the
Kellys or in place of the peans. I think it's really surgeons preference. So
I'm gonna go ahead and start putting that stuff up now. I also make sure to
clamp your instruments on the first clamp so they don't open up when you
hand it to the surgeon
On the back row I always like to put my retractors. Two army navies, two Senns.
For some reason I put my two Babcock's back there also. My x-ray detectable
sponges always go into the back left-hand corner. And I always preload my
stitch.
There you go. A simple and organized Mayo stand for a simple case like maybe a
hernia repair. Now there you have it folks. How to properly dress the Mayo
stand and how to organize a Mayo stand. So be sure to subscribe to the
Surgtech Academy page for the latest videos and notifications. I'm Mike once
again signing off from Surgtech Academy hoping you have a great day in
surgery and reminding you to be a superstar in your O.R.