I know it's going off the main issue but I used to have an "old school" boss when I worked for the PHLS many years ago who always insisted in calling me by my surname without the Mr when I always had to prefix his surname by "Dr" (he was a phD)I hated this and have alway preferred being called by my first name. I believe that it's more polite than insisting that I'm called Mr. Anyway, I've been called much worse than this as Geoff will know!
Getting back to the question of "applied parts". My understanding is that this is any electrical connection to the patient for the purpose of measurement or therapy e.g. ECG connections or defib. paddles etc. There are "grey" areas such as metal temperature probes which I would treat as an applied part and connect to the applied part terminal on the safety tester. In the case of insulated devices such as SpO2 probes I did make up a metal "finger" for our safety tester so that it could be connected to the applied parts terminals. However, I doubt the value of doing this. I also, doubt the value of connecting an IV set by some means to the applied part terminals of your tester. Whilst, the liquid in the set may be conducting (e.g. saline solution) it is totally enclosed in a insulated tube that passes through the IV pump and has no normasl electrical connection to the pump what-so-ever. Although, I suppose some would say that if the pump or tube is faulty there is a possibity of this due to leakage of the conducting liquid into the pump. However, this would be picked up during the visual check before testing.
I agree that we need to be sensible about this and weigh up the risks and the possibility of these sort of problems when carring out electrical safety tests on medical equipment, especially when the equipment is Class I BF or CF, or for that matter Class II.
