Proper Hand Positioning in Cataract Surgery

This is a special video because the camera is focused on my hands for the entire surgery, from placing the drapes at the beginning to removing the drapes at the end. You can see exactly how my hands are positioned for a routine cataract surgery.

Some of the key points are:

• a pen-grip is maintained throughout the procedure for holding most instruments
• the hands and instruments pivot to keep the eye in primary position during surgery
• the pinky and ring fingers are used to stabilize the hands against the patient’s head
• when injecting balanced salt solution in the eye, one hand holds the cannula tip just to make sure that it does not come undone or shoot into the eye under pressure
• sometimes the non-dominant hand is used to stabilize the other hand during surgery
• instruments which will be used again are held in the palm until needed (such as the chopper and fixation ring)

For the video, the camera was attached to the top of the microscope and aimed down at my hands. The microscope oculars and my head were not in the video picture because of special equipment that I used for this surgery day. We used 3D cameras attached to the microscope to capture the images and then display them on a 3D monitor. Polarized spectacles were worn by me to allow each eye to see a separate image to give a proper 3D image.

Click below to learn how to properly place your hands during cataract surgery: