Your Impact: New Orthopaedic Surgical Instruments and Equipment for Faster, Safer Surgeries
Published Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Rachel Duclos, Registered Nurse, Orthopedic Resource with some of the new surgical instruments enhancing orthopedic care at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
There are several things that can increase orthopaedic surgery capacity at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre – and adding sets of surgical instruments is one of them.
You are making an impact, thanks to your donations to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation, your participation in Foundation events, and your purchase of Thunder Bay 50/50 tickets. This year, you've given orthopaedic surgeons at the Hospital more sets of surgical instruments and other equipment leading to faster, better, safer patient surgeries.
The best set-up for surgeons is to have all the instruments they might need on one tray. It's similar to a home tool kit you might have at home – different size screwdrivers, ratchets, and pliers are right there when you open the lid.
However, while you might be able to make do with a different screwdriver, it doesn't work that way in surgery. Each instrument is designed for a particular purpose.
“The surgeons are trained using these precision instruments,” said Deb Everts, OR Team Leader at the Hospital. “That makes surgery faster, safer, and more efficient.”
For example, spinal surgery requires very specific instruments to safely operate on the backbone. As you can imagine, this is very delicate surgery. McCulloch retractors are designed to carefully pull back the skin and other soft tissue away from the spine with a minimal number of incisions. Others instruments are used to operate on the bone itself. The set includes a variety of sizes that the surgeon can use, depending on the patient.
“These sets are sterilized and wrapped separately, containing all the specialized instruments the surgeon needs for that particular surgery,” Everts said. “It makes it easier for the surgeon and ultimately safer for the patient.”
Faster surgeries also mean patients spend less time under general anaesthesia, further increasing patient safety.
Of course, those instruments need to be properly sterilized after every surgery. Previously, surgeons only had one set of these specialized McCulloch retractors. Now, you've helped double that capacity.
Your support also doubled capacity for foot and ankle surgeries with another complete set of instruments.
“The foot-and-ankle set has everything you need to prepare the bones for plates and screws: retractors, scraping tools, bone forceps that keep broken bones together while the surgeon fixes the break, and so on,” Everts said. “We only had one set before, so now we can do another foot or ankle surgery that day if need be.”
The new bundle also includes the OR's first cordless drill used for prepping bone for pins. Anyone who has used a cordless drill versus a corded one immediately knows the advantages. You also helped add three new tourniquets to upgrade and replace aging units. These inflate on the arm or leg like an extra-tight blood pressure cuff to reduce bleeding at the surgical site.
“The oldest one we had came from McKellar Hospital. It could start to leak and lose pressure during surgery, so it was time to replace it,” Everts said. “The new ones have a test feature so you can make sure it's working properly before surgery. They are also more user-friendly with intuitive touchscreen controls that make them faster and easier to use.”
Orthopaedic surgery is one of the busiest programs in the Hospital – and your support goes a long way to making these surgeries faster, easier, and safer for patients! Read more about how your support of the Health Sciences Foundation makes a difference every day: healthsciencesfoundation.ca/news
Article by: Graham Strong