Surgical Instruments Types: A Grey Medical Overview

Grey Medical: Pioneering the Science of Surgery 

For a skilled physician or a surgical assistant, knowing different types of surgical instruments and their respective uses is not only crucial to patient safety but also important for supplementing surgical practice in the best way possible. At Grey Medical, our highly experienced team of manufacturers and surgeons have put their heads together to craft precise and durable surgical instruments to suit the advanced needs of surgery. In this thorough guide, we will look into the commonly used surgical instruments and their respective uses to get an idea. Continue reading to explore!

Common Surgical Tools and Their Uses

Wrapping your head around different types of surgical instruments can be exhausting. To clear up any confusion, we have enumerated some common categories of surgical instruments and their respective types along with their applications to succinctly exhibit an overview of basic surgical equipment. 

Cutting Surgical Instruments 

Surgical instruments used for cutting are, perhaps, the most commonly employed tools in general surgery. These tools are specialized instruments to sever connective tissues on an operated patient and incise different tendons and muscles, even vessels and cartilage. Due to their active employment, keeping them maintained and sterilized is of utmost importance for patient safety. 

Surgical Scissors: These cutting surgical instruments are specially designed to incise any bodily tissue during the surgery. There are different surgical scissors for different purposes. Some types of heavy-duty surgical scissors help to sever the connective tissue and dissect the body, while others can help cut stitches and sutures, along with bandage dressings.

Surgical Scalpels: They are sharpened blade-like surgical tools for podiatry and dissection. They can either be single-use or reusable. Disposable scalpels are used only once and come with a handle made of plastic. While reusable one has a blade that can be sharpened on a blade sharpener. 

 

Surgical Saws: Surgical saws are usually used on hard surfaces, such as bones to cut them when needed during orthopaedic surgery or amputation. They can also assist in extracting a part of bone during forensics and investigation or simply when aiming to reach the chest cavity.

Grasping and Holding Surgical Instruments

During surgical procedures, grasping and holding tools are needed to either manipulate organic tissues or gain access to underlying surfaces to expose the defective areas. However, there are other grasping tools as well which assist in holding other materials like sponges and towels during surgery. 

Surgical Forceps: Forceps are the chief grasping tools. Depending upon their function, they are either thumb forceps or reverse forceps. The former opens when squeezed and is mostly employed to administer, replace, and remove tied stitches and dressings. The latter closes when squeezed and is used to apply tension. Still, there are other types, such as ratcheted and non-ratcheted forceps. Ratcheted forceps are augmented with a step-lock feature which allows the tool to shut close during different times of the surgery. Some ratcheted forceps are Allis, Babock, Dunhills, and Sawtell, among others, which assist in grasping dense tissues. 

 

Surgical Tweezers: Non-ratcheted forceps, also referred to as surgical tweezers, have no additional step-lock. It includes Debakey, Lanes, and Gillies to hold delicate tissues without causing damage. They are different from ratcheted forceps as they do not lock in place and need consistent handling from a surgeon. They are mostly used to manipulate soft, delicate tissue and remove any outside object that may have gained access to the body. 

Hemostatic Surgical Instruments 

Hemostatic surgical instruments are specialized tools which assist in occluding excessive bleeding or tying a ruptured vessel during high vascular surgeries or an injury. 

Hemostats: Mostly known as snaps, hemostats are supplemented with locking action to provide hemostasis. Crile Hemostat, Kocher Clamps, and Kelly Clamps are some of the widely known hemostats. While the crile hemostat works to cut off blood flow from a blood vessel with its non-serrated clamps, Kelly clamps assist in clamping larger vessels. Kocher clamps are mostly used on discarded vessels to hold them tied until extraction.

Surgical Sutures: Done with the assistance of a needle and a thread, surgical sutures stop the blood by stitching the wounded area. These are efficient in achieving prompt hemostasis without any delay. Performing sutures closes up the wound and helps the natural healing of the connective tissue. 

Surgical Retractors

Surgical retractors, as the name specifies, are either employed to keep the operated wound open or pull apart certain upper organs to expose the layers underneath. Most body cavities can close on their own when not held by an outside tool. Retractors assist in keeping the cavities wide open. Self-retaining and non-self-retaining are general classifications of a retractor. While the former keeps itself open without any outside manipulation, the latter has to be handled by a holder. 

 

Langenbeck Retractor: The Langenbeck retractor comes in varying sizes and is usually shaped like a hook. It is usually employed to hold the extremes of an incision wide open.

Norfolk and Norwich Retractor: This is a self-retaining retracting tool which is mostly used in neurological and cardiovascular surgeries. They are blunt-end and prevent tissue from damaging during usage. 

Travers Retractor: Travers is mostly used on small and delicate wounds to keep the edges wide open. They are self-retaining. 

Tissue Unifying Surgical Equipment

During the surgery, the bones, muscles, or connective tissues require procedures that can unify the wear and tear. There are a plethora of tissue-unifying surgical tools such as surgical needles and needle holders, surgical glue and tape, and surgical staplers. Electric cauterizers, which burn off the wound to connect the tissues, are also a type of tissue-unifying tool.

 

Needle and Needle Holder: Used to close open incisions and wounds, surgical needles and needle holders assist in suturing a wound. It can also help in ligation. With the help of a needle holder, you can push the needle to plant a stitch on the wounded area. 

Surgical Glue: Made from sterile collagen, surgical glue can be applied to open wounds and incisions to achieve hemostasis and unify the tissues. It also assists in blocking any air leakages during operation. 

Surgical Stapler: As an alternative to sutures and stitches, surgical staplers staple torn tissues and close open wounds. 

FAQs

Q1: What are some of the absolute essential cutting surgical tools?

Some of the essential cutting tools are surgical blades, incisors, knives, and scissors. Depending upon specialized needs, they all have different functions. 

Q2: What surgical tools are paramount in surgery?

Surgical scissors, surgical scalpels, knives, needles, and retractors, among others, are some of the must-haves in an operating theatre. 

Augment Your Practice with Grey Medical’s Top-Notch Surgical Equipment 

Knowing and understanding the different types of commonly used surgical instruments is important to supplement your surgical practice and gain expertise in your field. Grey Medical has a firm grounding in the field of surgery and has been contributing to it for decades. We are known for our well-crafted and precise surgical instruments around the globe and hundreds of surgeons and novices benefit from our instruments. We employ high-grade stainless steel to manufacture our surgical tools, for we afford no compromise on quality and standard. To grab the best deals, visit our online store now!