Navigating the dangers of oculofacial surgery

Jeremiah Tao, MD, FACS, is the chief of oculofacial plastic and orbital surgery at Gavin Herbert Eye Institute in Irvine, California. In a keynote lecture at the Egyptian Ophthalmological Society (EOS) meeting earlier this year, titled "Avoiding disasters in oculofacial surgery," Dr Tao shared his expert pearls for preventing the deleterious and dangerous events that can be a part of complex surgeries.

He said that, for example, there is a "hush" of embarrassment around surgical fires, despite their relative commonality. "We very commonly operate with patients awake but sedated, and they receive oxygen supplementation," Dr Tao explained. "It causes the skin, the drapes and everything in your surgical field to become flammable...We use electric cautery, lasers, other heat devices. So it's really a setup for this horrific complication." In this interview with Sydney Crago, managing editor of the Eye Care Network, Dr Tao shares his guidance for avoiding fires and ensuring surgeries can be performed safely.

Dr Tao new and under-utilised techniques for mitigating other surgical risks. Watch the whole video to learn his strategies for suppressing dangerous sneeze reflexes when administering propofol, avoiding vascular complications from increasingly-popular facial fillers and why surgeons should consider implementing tranexamic acid into their protocols.