How is it that doctors can use the electric paddles on patients with ear or body piercings in place? Won’t the electric shock burn the piercing sites around the metal?
In: Technology
Depends on which electric paddles you’re talking about, and where they use them. Generally speaking metal will heat up when a current passes through it due to electrical resistance. If a device has low power (voltage*current), then it will probably be okay in terms of hurting the patient. I can’t think of any really high voltage medical devices that pass the current directly through a patient. Defibrillator voltage is usually a few hundred volts but idk what the current is. When I did my emergency first aid training I was told don’t worry about piercings, just give them treatment. This kind of makes sense, if defibrillators do actually cause enough resistive heating that it would make piercings heat up enough to burn (which… idk, seems like that would do more damage to flesh than a conductive metal) then worst case scenario is… a small burn. Plus the paddles don’t usually go on the nipples or earlobes or bellybutton, so probably not a massive issue, as current would only flow through the piercings if the paddles were in contact with them.
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