At AORN26 in New Orleans, a poster highlights surgical smoke risks, urging nationwide evacuation policies to protect health care workers and patients and strengthen nurse-led advocacy for safer operating rooms.
At the 2026 Association of periOperative Registered Nurse (AORN) Global Surgical Conference & Expo (AORN26) in New Orleans, Louisiana, a poster presentation is drawing attention to a persistent and often underestimated hazard in the operating room: surgical smoke. Titled “227 – Up in Smoke: It’s Time to Clear the Air and Call for Nation-wide Smoke Evacuation,” the work by Alexis J. Carlson, MSN, RN, CNOR, highlights the urgent need for standardized protections for health care workers and patients.
Carlson, an Operating Room Operations Officer in the United States Air Force Nurse Corps, in Las Vegas, Nevada, centers the discussion on the scale of exposure. More than 500,000 health care workers in the United States are exposed to surgical smoke plume each year, underscoring a significant occupational health and patient safety concern…