My name is Blake Smith, and I am a Tissue Recovery Coordinator (CTBS) and Tissue Preceptor at Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency. My primary responsibility as Preceptor is to train tissue recovery staff and improve efficiency within our processes. I found that skin recovery was one of the more difficult techniques to train due to the variance in body types and function of our equipment at the time. On multiple occasions, I found myself reassuring new team members that they would eventually get the hang of skin recovery.
As fate would have it, I met Amber McAfee at an AATB meeting. She had a table set up with information and videos on the Exsurco Medical Amalgatome® MD. The equipment Amber began to describe and the videos I watched of the Amalgatome MD in action seemed too good to be true. Our team was skeptical but decided to get more information and asked to take part in a trial period. Amber came in with the Amalgatome MD and we haven't looked back since.
The Amalgatome MD is completely different in design and entirely different in technique (pull instead of push). Almost immediately our skin yield more than doubled. We think these positive results were attained not only because of how easy the Amalgatome MD is to use, but because we are able to recover from additional sites that were inaccessible with our previous equipment. Amber has visited several times to aid in training and implementation of the Amalgatome MD. The hardest part about training for the Amalgatome MD was to teach veteran team members to forget about the limitations of the previous equipment. We have had great results from first time users who had little to no experience in skin recovery and our team is still eager to test its capabilities.
Based on the positive results from the Amalgatome MD and the comprehensive support from Amber McAfee, the team and I are very confident in our recommendation of the Amalgatome MD.
Blake Smith, CTBS
Tissue Recovery Coordinator
Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency