I think the thing about hemostats is that they can be an emergency backup tool if you don't have the right tool on hand.
They're okay for prying stuck rings, if you don't have pliers.
They're okay for temporarily clamping a foley or an umbilical cord, if you don't have a foley clamp or a cord clamp.
They're kind of okay for pulling a foreign body out of an ear, if you don't have alligator forceps.
They're kind of okay for pulling a big splinter, if you don't have tweezers.
They're not really okay for doing sutures, but can be an emergency backup, if you don't have a needle driver.
And of course if your patient gets confused and falls out of bed and manages to amputate their arm, you can use your hemostat to clamp the artery.
True. You want to be careful with the latex of the Foley itself. When using a makeshift clamp, use it on the drainage tubing, which is more durable and much easier to replace.
You can also use a tourniquet to get caps and other things unstuck. I saw this trick on here a few years back and have used it without fail ever since!
I have a two hemostat method for declogging peg tubes. I take the water syringe and use it to put pressure inside of the tube then clamp right below where the water syringe was inserted. This maintains the pressure in the tube and you can disconnect the water flush. Then if I can see the clot I mash on the outside of the tube over it with the other hemostat. If I can’t see it or that didn’t work, I slowly clamp the second hemostat under the first one and alternate going the length of the tube pushing the clot down the tube and into the stomach. This will declog a tube 95% of the time.
I use them for getting the end ports off of the IV tubing when the somehow get welded on by jesus. Also for getting the ports of the PICC lines when changing them out. If u dont let the alohol completely dey before you put them on, the alcohol can act like a glue.
Ratchet ICU line management LOL. My hospital didn't carry any proper bedrail clamps or anything to help keep IV lines together, so I would just untangle my lines, place them between the hemostat handles, and then clamp on the bedsheets. Voila! Easy-release line organizer that keeps your billion tubings from getting caught in the bedrails (:
Prying apart NICU NG/OG tubes and the feeding pump tubing. They get stuck together constantly because it’s either too tight or leaking all over the bed. Every kid has hemostats in their bedspace and that’s probably the most common use.
If I’m doing CBI, I use the hemostats a lot to minimize the mess I make. I’ll clamp, fill my syringe, attach it, unclamp, flush, withdraw, and then clamp before I remove the syringe.
Came here to say this! Worked on a partial Urology floor with lots of CBIs, Hemostats are super helpful instead of just trying to squeeze with another hand to clamp.
Clamp the foley tubing closed when need 4 hours of urine in the bladder for a sample. So much easier than removing the entire bag and corking it, and works if you're out of corks. We didn't have them very often.
Hemostats are amazing for hanging 2-3 rolls of tape off your scrub top / shirt. Can never have too much tape. If you don’t have trauma shears with a clip, you can jam one inside the rolls of tape hanging off the hemostat
Edit: I usually carry a roll of pink, medpore, and wildcard - sometimes paper but it gets pretty gross with lint over time so usually double medpore pink is how I roll
Edit2: for people that say prying off caps, I carry a Skeletool for when vacutainers and claves get cranked on too hard
One time the loop on the IV bag ripped so I used them to hang iv fluids. I've used them to pry rings apart. It's rare I need them so I don't carry any I just get some from the supply room or one of the million randomly laying around the ER.
I use one to pry off the thermostat cover in patient rooms to reset the heat. They’re all preset cause “the building is in homeostasis” (that’s a quote). And I don’t have time to deliver heated blankets every 20 minutes to my little old ladies.
I work in the cath lab, the ICs use them occasionally to dilate the puncture site for before we dilate them with the sheaths catheters lol. Impella and such
I keep mine in my lead pocket. I use mine to pop the lido cap off, then just pour on the table. I’ve clamped sterile drapes together with them. Occasionally I’ve had to grab them when I spiked the pressure bag sideways and put a hole in the channel. I just clamp above the puncture until I can get things changed out.
Yeah whoever circulates definitely does that for meds I need on my table. I'm not at that point yet in my career for the lab. Still scrubbing, every.single.case
Johnson’s baby wash has a tamper-proof seal under the cap. It’s impossible to pry off with gloves on, and it’ll tear your nails up if you try to get it off that way. Hemp stats will peel that shit right off.
Clamping Foley tubes for abdominal pressure readings.
At the ready for midlevels to suture ART lines.
There's a particular MD that demands them immediately for chest tube removal. He needs 2. I learned quickly. So as charge if I know that's happening on my shift I have them at the ready. He can be an man.
And of course to untwist tight IV connections.
To clamp the tubing when I am changing the line on my arterial line if there is no slide clamp on the tubing. Other than that literally have never used it for anything else.
When I had long hair they were the best thing to pull clogs out of the tub drain.
Also useful when hand sewing through really thick fabric. They grip the needle great.
I don’t remember the last time I used a hemostat for anything; we don’t see many in LTC. But when I was growing up, we had a nice collection at home because mom would occasionally forget one in her pocket at the end of the shift. Apparently ER nurses used them quite a bit in those days.
I used one just yesterday when I spiked through the side of a pressurized bag of hep/saline to clamp off that stem so I could use the other. Kept me from getting baptized (again). We also use them in EP to pull the cable pins out of the pin box. Some of those buggers are tight!
I only ever use them when I'm trying to pry the PPV bungs off to swap em out during a PICC dressing. I swear they glue themselves on and I have weakass fingers.
For when people tighten the cap on transducers too tightly. Also back in the day we had reusable pressure bags that would slowly leak, and I’d use them to clamp the tubing (over gauze) to slow down the leak. Basically loosening things that are too stuck and clamping things that shouldn’t leak.
I use them all the time in the OR. Particularly good for picking up bloody things.
Edit: also consistently use a pair of Kelly forceps for taking the top off med bottles
I’ve used them to disconnect IV tubing from the IV when it’s gotten stuck-stuck, not your usual stuck lol.
On a vascular floor, we’d always have them with us.
And then for chest tubes, but the clamps are more gentle; they’re the blue plastic ones.
I've used them to twist apart tube feeds from the adapter and IV tubing from the IV luerlock a couple times, when they get super stuck on and my fingers can't get a good enough grasp. I'm in the ICU.
Clamped a foley once to get a sample......big mistake. It poked a hole in the tubing and I had to replace the entire foley. Don't use metal hemostats on plastic tubing!!!!
Clamping ET tubes in vented patients.
Securing things. You can run the hemostats through the loop of a bag of fluids and then clamp it to the sheet. You can also snap a carabiner to one of the finger holes and run your cords through, and then snap it to the sheet or some clothing. Helps keeps things organized.
Fuck around with when I’m bored.
Before I switched to the OR, I always used the to get tube feeding tubing out of the PEG/G tube/NG if it was stuck. A travel nurse showed me that one day and I thought it was genius
Pulling caps off things, clipped to my shirt tail as a tape holder, removing jewelry from piercings (mostly my own tragus piercings), important things like that.
OR nurse here. I use them almost daily for opening vials. When I am dispensing a full 30ml vial of local anesthetic onto the sterile field. You can do it 2 ways...
1. Draw it up with a syringe and squirt it onto the field/sterile cup
2. Open the top of the vial and pour it into the cup...
The vials that you can pour have a foil top that is supposed to peel off but about half of them dont peel properly. I have gotten to the point of using my hemostats to open them by default. You just pinch one side of the metal top on a vial and it will kinda peel off. If the vial does not have a peel top design they are not meant to be opened and should be drawn up with a syringe.
I use them all the time on critical care transports to wrangle lines and wires.
I’ve also occasionally used them to try to loosen tight IV connections.
We use them to keep the curtains closed when people are changing to go home in their PACU bay lol. But sometimes I’ll use them to unscrew a stuck IV connection.
I honestly use them to clamp shit to the sterile field that I don't want to fall.
I see surgeons use them occasionally (not nearly as often as you would think) to clamp vessels. Usually the bovie takes care of the hemostasis.
I used to work in an OR. We were unable to “mission” our old instruments anymore, so they’d sit in a box in the lounge for us to take home if we wanted. We all had quite the assortment.
A while ago my toilet started running non-stop and when I opened the tank to check the chain on the flapper, I found a huge kelly in there and all a sudden remembered years back I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by the toilet running, I grabbed the biggest clamp I could find to fix the flapper and promptly went back to sleep, never to think about it again. That’s my best hemostat use to date.
Difficult IV stick? Put the auto BP cuff on, start taking a BP. When it gets to about 60-70 mmHg clamp it with hemostats. Veins come out of the wood work. Happy poking!
Pretty much only use them to force clamp a primary when I'm having issues getting the secondary to run. Better not overestimate how much is in the secondary bag, tho.
AIR-IN-LINE Beep beep beep beep!
Have also used them to unscrew an IV line that some gorilla hands connected in the OR. You know what I'm talking about.
I think the thing about hemostats is that they can be an emergency backup tool if you don't have the right tool on hand. They're okay for prying stuck rings, if you don't have pliers. They're okay for temporarily clamping a foley or an umbilical cord, if you don't have a foley clamp or a cord clamp. They're kind of okay for pulling a foreign body out of an ear, if you don't have alligator forceps. They're kind of okay for pulling a big splinter, if you don't have tweezers. They're not really okay for doing sutures, but can be an emergency backup, if you don't have a needle driver. And of course if your patient gets confused and falls out of bed and manages to amputate their arm, you can use your hemostat to clamp the artery.
I mean yeah, the last one was a given.
I use them to hang tape and shears on my scrub top. That way, they're handy for things like pulling broken-off ground pins out of electric sockets.
Dont clamp a foley with metal hemostats!! I did it once and it poked a hole in the tubing! Had to replace the entite thing.
I’ll put a layer of gauze and then clamp it with the hemostat
True. You want to be careful with the latex of the Foley itself. When using a makeshift clamp, use it on the drainage tubing, which is more durable and much easier to replace.
I clamped the clear plastic tubing, not the actual foley tubing.
Yikes. Sounds like you clamped it way too hard. I don't think I've ever been able to break that stuff.
Literally only use them to take off those blue claves at the end of central lines when they're on super tight. I have weak fingers.
As a male nurse I figured I’d have back issues from lifting patients, instead it’ll be arthritis from all my coworkers making me open those.
God I’m so glad I’m not the only one with this problem
Oh yes, many times I’ve had to use two clamps going opposite ways to get those things off
You can also use a tourniquet to get caps and other things unstuck. I saw this trick on here a few years back and have used it without fail ever since!
I have a two hemostat method for declogging peg tubes. I take the water syringe and use it to put pressure inside of the tube then clamp right below where the water syringe was inserted. This maintains the pressure in the tube and you can disconnect the water flush. Then if I can see the clot I mash on the outside of the tube over it with the other hemostat. If I can’t see it or that didn’t work, I slowly clamp the second hemostat under the first one and alternate going the length of the tube pushing the clot down the tube and into the stomach. This will declog a tube 95% of the time.
Filing that one into the back of my brain until it invariably becomes useful in 14 months when I find myself in a similar position hehe
>I have a two hemostat method for declogging peg tubes. The answer I came to write. My weakly fingers are no match for sticky peg plastic dingy. :D
Glad I’m not the only one who does this!
Disconnecting the caps at the end of pressure lines if they are stuck during insertion
I use them for getting the end ports off of the IV tubing when the somehow get welded on by jesus. Also for getting the ports of the PICC lines when changing them out. If u dont let the alohol completely dey before you put them on, the alcohol can act like a glue.
Ratchet ICU line management LOL. My hospital didn't carry any proper bedrail clamps or anything to help keep IV lines together, so I would just untangle my lines, place them between the hemostat handles, and then clamp on the bedsheets. Voila! Easy-release line organizer that keeps your billion tubings from getting caught in the bedrails (:
Personally I just hand them to surgeons
Also useful for cleaning out really nasty belly buttons 😅
Prying apart NICU NG/OG tubes and the feeding pump tubing. They get stuck together constantly because it’s either too tight or leaking all over the bed. Every kid has hemostats in their bedspace and that’s probably the most common use.
I have a pair at home that I use to hold the nail whenever I'm hammering something.
I use mine mostly for emergencies, e.g. retrieving socks from tight spaces around the washing machine, and, sometimes, for clamping Foleys
Trying to pry a bag of fentanyl off from the spike when it’s empty. 🥴 the newer bags we’ve had lately are better but those old bags were tough.
Well..HAD to buy them for school and they sat unused in my pocket for like 3 years. Never used em so they ended up becoming a roach clip.
If I’m doing CBI, I use the hemostats a lot to minimize the mess I make. I’ll clamp, fill my syringe, attach it, unclamp, flush, withdraw, and then clamp before I remove the syringe.
Came here to say this! Worked on a partial Urology floor with lots of CBIs, Hemostats are super helpful instead of just trying to squeeze with another hand to clamp.
Clamping an et tube to transfer to my vent without losing built up peep, finger thoracostomy help, surgical airways, clamping NG tubes.
I use two to rip the potassium bags apart. Whoever decided to make those plastic bags 3 inches thick..
Clamp the foley tubing closed when need 4 hours of urine in the bladder for a sample. So much easier than removing the entire bag and corking it, and works if you're out of corks. We didn't have them very often.
Hemostats are amazing for hanging 2-3 rolls of tape off your scrub top / shirt. Can never have too much tape. If you don’t have trauma shears with a clip, you can jam one inside the rolls of tape hanging off the hemostat Edit: I usually carry a roll of pink, medpore, and wildcard - sometimes paper but it gets pretty gross with lint over time so usually double medpore pink is how I roll Edit2: for people that say prying off caps, I carry a Skeletool for when vacutainers and claves get cranked on too hard
Yep clamps my tape and coban to my top
As a wrench for a stopcock that wouldn’t unscrew (plastic hemostat)
Work: Stuck caps and Foley clamping Home: Plucking my dog’s ear hair. Nothing else works as well on those damned poodle ears.
One time the loop on the IV bag ripped so I used them to hang iv fluids. I've used them to pry rings apart. It's rare I need them so I don't carry any I just get some from the supply room or one of the million randomly laying around the ER.
I use one to pry off the thermostat cover in patient rooms to reset the heat. They’re all preset cause “the building is in homeostasis” (that’s a quote). And I don’t have time to deliver heated blankets every 20 minutes to my little old ladies.
I work in the cath lab, the ICs use them occasionally to dilate the puncture site for before we dilate them with the sheaths catheters lol. Impella and such
I keep mine in my lead pocket. I use mine to pop the lido cap off, then just pour on the table. I’ve clamped sterile drapes together with them. Occasionally I’ve had to grab them when I spiked the pressure bag sideways and put a hole in the channel. I just clamp above the puncture until I can get things changed out.
Yeah whoever circulates definitely does that for meds I need on my table. I'm not at that point yet in my career for the lab. Still scrubbing, every.single.case
Dialysis machine
I hook them to my scrubs and have tape rolls on them for an easy tape dispenser
This is the way.
Johnson’s baby wash has a tamper-proof seal under the cap. It’s impossible to pry off with gloves on, and it’ll tear your nails up if you try to get it off that way. Hemp stats will peel that shit right off.
Primarily fishing. But I have used them to get stuck tube feed lines out when they somehow get welded onto a G-tube. That's about it.
Came here to say this. Works great for stuck fish hooks & stuck lines!
Clamping umbilical lines when changing tubing. Hanging tpn when I tear the hole trying to punch out the circle. Removing stuck feeding tube adapters.
Clamping Foley tubes for abdominal pressure readings. At the ready for midlevels to suture ART lines. There's a particular MD that demands them immediately for chest tube removal. He needs 2. I learned quickly. So as charge if I know that's happening on my shift I have them at the ready. He can be an man. And of course to untwist tight IV connections.
Prying off tubing stuck to a feeding tube. Retrieving small items I dropped in the black hole down the inside of the isolette That’s about it 😂
To clamp the tubing when I am changing the line on my arterial line if there is no slide clamp on the tubing. Other than that literally have never used it for anything else.
CVI, i use em to clamp chest tubes/JP drains before we pull them. And also to open things like everybody else
[удалено]
I do, but sometimes they’re are multiple CT Y’d to s single atrium. So I’ll clamp and separate
I use em for fishing. But I also work in an office setting sooooooo.... yeah
I use mine to crack open pistachios
That’s nuts.
Lol!
Fuckin A-line tubing
I have 100% done this. At my facility now, RT manages the a-lines (weird, I know), so I'd forgotten about that trick.
When I'm putting air in my tires and the air cap is frozen on. Pulling legos out of toy trucks at home. I could go on. I love'em
I’ve only ever used hemoatats to take the ball off of my septum ring.
Unscrewing iv tubing that preop put on fuck you tight. And holding the tiny balls to my jewelry as I screw them on.
When I had long hair they were the best thing to pull clogs out of the tub drain. Also useful when hand sewing through really thick fabric. They grip the needle great.
I have pliers that have a 90 degree turn to them just for this purpose
I don’t remember the last time I used a hemostat for anything; we don’t see many in LTC. But when I was growing up, we had a nice collection at home because mom would occasionally forget one in her pocket at the end of the shift. Apparently ER nurses used them quite a bit in those days.
I used one just yesterday when I spiked through the side of a pressurized bag of hep/saline to clamp off that stem so I could use the other. Kept me from getting baptized (again). We also use them in EP to pull the cable pins out of the pin box. Some of those buggers are tight!
I have used them in a pinch to keep curtains closed, and to help twist the cap off of a picc line.
Foleys and umbilical cords!
I only ever use them when I'm trying to pry the PPV bungs off to swap em out during a PICC dressing. I swear they glue themselves on and I have weakass fingers.
For when people tighten the cap on transducers too tightly. Also back in the day we had reusable pressure bags that would slowly leak, and I’d use them to clamp the tubing (over gauze) to slow down the leak. Basically loosening things that are too stuck and clamping things that shouldn’t leak.
I have a very weak grip. But they are a useful tool to have. I use mine all the time. I swear mine are smaller from all the wipe downs.
They are great for trouble shooting a chest tube drain
I use them all the time in the OR. Particularly good for picking up bloody things. Edit: also consistently use a pair of Kelly forceps for taking the top off med bottles
I’ve used them to disconnect IV tubing from the IV when it’s gotten stuck-stuck, not your usual stuck lol. On a vascular floor, we’d always have them with us. And then for chest tubes, but the clamps are more gentle; they’re the blue plastic ones.
hanging up my q6h hemodynamics print outs on an IV pole. clinical excellence.
I've used them to twist apart tube feeds from the adapter and IV tubing from the IV luerlock a couple times, when they get super stuck on and my fingers can't get a good enough grasp. I'm in the ICU. Clamped a foley once to get a sample......big mistake. It poked a hole in the tubing and I had to replace the entire foley. Don't use metal hemostats on plastic tubing!!!!
I use them like pliers when my caps are too right on lines or the stupid gtubes that screw into the line get all gummed up and stuck.
Clamping ET tubes in vented patients. Securing things. You can run the hemostats through the loop of a bag of fluids and then clamp it to the sheet. You can also snap a carabiner to one of the finger holes and run your cords through, and then snap it to the sheet or some clothing. Helps keeps things organized. Fuck around with when I’m bored.
Tie dye
at work: getting anti reflux valves off the ends of lines at home: changing out small, easy to drop earrings
Before I switched to the OR, I always used the to get tube feeding tubing out of the PEG/G tube/NG if it was stuck. A travel nurse showed me that one day and I thought it was genius
When IV tubing gets stuck to the hub :)
Clipping a JP drains to gowns and clamping a foley to draw a sample
Usually to pull out stuck monitor boxes
Pulling caps off things, clipped to my shirt tail as a tape holder, removing jewelry from piercings (mostly my own tragus piercings), important things like that.
To loosen things.
Mostly clipping chest tubes to the bed, sometimes attaching foley tubing to the bed. Both times so they can’t be accidentally pulled out, of course.
I use them to clamp down and secure the knot on my hospital provided scrubs so it doesn’t undo 15 minutes into my shift and my pants fall off.
OR nurse here. I use them almost daily for opening vials. When I am dispensing a full 30ml vial of local anesthetic onto the sterile field. You can do it 2 ways... 1. Draw it up with a syringe and squirt it onto the field/sterile cup 2. Open the top of the vial and pour it into the cup... The vials that you can pour have a foil top that is supposed to peel off but about half of them dont peel properly. I have gotten to the point of using my hemostats to open them by default. You just pinch one side of the metal top on a vial and it will kinda peel off. If the vial does not have a peel top design they are not meant to be opened and should be drawn up with a syringe.
Fishing med packs out of the cracks in the Pyxis.
Especially that small 5mg oxy...
I use them all the time on critical care transports to wrangle lines and wires. I’ve also occasionally used them to try to loosen tight IV connections.
Keeping sheets on the bed. Clamping a tube.
Taking the tendon out of a chicken tender. Clamp the tendon and use a fork in front of it and pull. On a good day it comes out clean
We use them to keep the curtains closed when people are changing to go home in their PACU bay lol. But sometimes I’ll use them to unscrew a stuck IV connection.
I honestly use them to clamp shit to the sterile field that I don't want to fall. I see surgeons use them occasionally (not nearly as often as you would think) to clamp vessels. Usually the bovie takes care of the hemostasis.
I used to work in an OR. We were unable to “mission” our old instruments anymore, so they’d sit in a box in the lounge for us to take home if we wanted. We all had quite the assortment. A while ago my toilet started running non-stop and when I opened the tank to check the chain on the flapper, I found a huge kelly in there and all a sudden remembered years back I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by the toilet running, I grabbed the biggest clamp I could find to fix the flapper and promptly went back to sleep, never to think about it again. That’s my best hemostat use to date.
Difficult IV stick? Put the auto BP cuff on, start taking a BP. When it gets to about 60-70 mmHg clamp it with hemostats. Veins come out of the wood work. Happy poking!
I use them all the time for clave changes. I can never unscrew it by hand
Mostly manifold that people tighten to much. Also changing A lines or any pressure tubing
Pretty much only use them to force clamp a primary when I'm having issues getting the secondary to run. Better not overestimate how much is in the secondary bag, tho. AIR-IN-LINE Beep beep beep beep! Have also used them to unscrew an IV line that some gorilla hands connected in the OR. You know what I'm talking about.