Advantages And Disadvantages Of Surgical Drain Management

By Aimee Schwartz


Medical interventions always use equipment and tools for performing procedures and to ensure fast recovery for the patients. These equipment are used to save lives and to make the procedure easy and safe for both the patient and the surgeon. Clinical procedures need to be really done carefully and effectively because lives rely on these.

Either mere examinations or intensive surgeries need tools and systems to help make the process more accurate and to achieve better results. Surgical drain management is one of the functions of both professionals and systems working together. Surgical drains are used to take away all the excess air and fluids from the body of the patient.

The system includes primary functions like accumulation of blood, pus, and other fluids into the drain especially when anastomotic leakage occurs. It is also applicable in putting catheters and plastic surgeries. In addition, it is used in chest drainage process, operations of the breast, removal of cyst, neurosurgery, and some orthopedic procedures.

The system could be silastic or rubber, closed or open, and active or passive. Silastics are very inert and rubbers contain tracts. Closed systems use bottles while open systems use stoma bags. Finally, active drains have suction pressures controlled at high or low depending on what is required and passive relies on the pressure of the body.

The fluids that are accumulated by these tools are removed or stopped when they reach around twenty five milliliters a day. They can also be removed or withdrawn in a gradual manner which is about two centimeters per day. But those attached in postoperative sites are kept longer for protection. This will last approximately seven days.

In order to exercise palliative care, medical practitioners should pull, stop, or remove the drain carefully because this could be painful in the part of the patient. That is why they need to take pain relievers whenever possible. After the removal, the nurse will clean the part dry and will give advice on how to take care of the healing wound to avoid infection.

If the removal is not done within the required time, it could be difficult to remove. That is why there is a need to gradually remove some of the tubes. On the other hand, if the removal is done at an earlier stage even if the wound has not been totally healed, there could be infection risks.

Operations in the gastrointestinal systems do not imply the use of drains because it can pose a threat to the patient. This is a sensitive part and it is much safer without this equipment. If the mechanical pressure is not properly controlled, there could be complications.

Doctors and nurses must be true to their vows all the time. Medical malpractice, either intentional or unintentional, can be avoided. As part of palliative care, they should also be sensitive to the feelings of the patients undergoing a great deal of pain.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment