‘Fire in the Operating Room,’ ASA funded Videotape No. 20, is now available. Burroughs-Wellcome began distribution of the tape in October 1993.

This videotape details the origin, prevention and management of fires in the operating room. Paul F. Leonard, BSEE, M.D., and Gerald L. Wolf, M.D., narrators, emphasize O.R. team training and vigilance in fire prevention; the correct use of O.R. surgical equipment, alertness to other conditions contributory to fire ignition, and the right choice and method for fire extinguishment based upon the fire ignition source. Although all O.R. fires are devastating, those fed by oxygen-enriched environments pose the greatest danger. Anesthesia providers, therefore, should be on constant alert, should have a protocol for airway fires and must be forearmed with an immediate and total response to prevent patient injury, proceed with patient evacuation speedily and extinguish fires correctly.

The film, prepared by the ASA Committee on Patient Safety and Risk Management, was scripted by GWF Associates. David Eric Lees, M.D., Paul F. Leonard, BSEE, M.D., Gerald L. Wolf, M.D., and John M. Brunner, M.D., served as consultants.

The next videotape, No. 21, ‘An Anesthetic Catastrophe’, completed and in the editing phase, will be available in February 1994. Burroughs Wellcome will again distribute the tape.

Dr. Pierce is President of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) and Executive Producer of the ASA Patient Safety Videotape Series. All tapes in the ASA Patient Safety Videotape Series, many of which are still available, are distributed by local Burroughs Wellcome representatives.

Videotapes produced in this series include:

Cassette A

1. ASA Series Overview

2. Preventing Disconnection in the Breathing circuit

3. Machine Checkout

Cassette B

4. Anesthesia Record Keeping 5. Human Error

6. Adverse Events

Cassette C

7. Monitoring with the Six Senses

8. Monitoring with Instruments

9. Anesthesia Equipment Service

10. Margin of Safety-Monitoring the Neuromuscular junction

11. Emergence: Patient Safety in the Postanesthesia Care Unit

12. The Impaired Practitioner

13. Safety in Obstetrical Anesthesia

14. Anatomy of an Anesthesia Machine

15. The Difficult Airway-Part I-Algorithm

16. The Difficult Airway, Part II: Management The Cricothyroid Membrane

17. Central Venous Catheters

18. Infection Control in Anesthesiology

19. The Difficult Airway, Part Ill-Fiberoptic Intubation

20. Fire in the Operating Room