Surgical Instruments

Surgical Instruments are the elements that help the surgeon perform a surgical intervention. A surgical instrument is a tool or implement specially designed to perform specific actions of performing desired effects during a surgery or operation, such as modifying biological tissue, or providing access to view it. Over time, many different kinds of surgical instruments and tools have been invented. Some surgical instruments are designed for specific procedures or surgeries. Consequently, the nomenclature of surgical instruments follows certain patterns such as a description of the action it performs (e.g., scalpel, hemostat), the name of its inventor(s) (e.g., Kocher's forceps), or a composite scientific name related to the type of surgery (e.g., a tracheostome is a tool used to perform a tracheotomy).

Surgical instruments have been made since prehistoric times. Rough bits for craniotomies have been discovered in many Neolithic sites. It is believed that they were used by shamans to release evil spirits and relieve headaches and head trauma caused by war wounds. Surgeons and doctors in India have used sophisticated surgical instruments since ancient times. Sushruta Samhita (about 500 BC) was probably the most important surgeon in ancient history, known as the "father of surgery". In his text Sushruta Samhita described more than 120 surgical instruments, 300 surgical interventions and classified surgery in humans into 8 categories. In antiquity, surgeons and doctors in Greece and Rome developed many ingenious instruments made of bronze, iron and silver, such as scalpels, lancets, qunets, tweezers, specula, bits, tweezers, probes, dilators, tubes, surgical knives, etc. are still very well preserved in various museums of medicine around the world. Most of these instruments continued to be used in medieval times, although with a better manufacturing technique.

Surgical instrument expression is somewhat used interchangeably with surgical instruments, but its meaning in medical jargon is really the activity of providing assistance to a surgeon with the proper manipulation of surgical instruments during the operation, by a specialized professional, usually a surgical technologist or sometimes a nurse or radiologic technologist.

The responsibility for participating in the maintenance, knowledge of cleaning methods, preservation, conditioning and packaging of surgical instruments for later use is shared with the surgical instrument and the circulating nurse. There is a particular classification of the basic surgical instruments, according to their use: dieresis, dissection, haemostasis, exposure, apprehension, exploration and synthesis.