Abstract: A medical instrument, such as a cautery device, wherein bleeding is stopped or prevented by clamping the bleeding site with a dedicated forceps and using a highly localized heat source such as a fiber-coupled laser. The laser energy quickly and locally heats up the tip of the forceps cautery device. The tip of the forceps device has minimum thermal mass and is thermally insulated from the body of the forceps. In this present invention, there is no electrical current flowing through or into the tip of the instrument, and can therefore be safely used in any part of the body including around the heart or the brain. When combined with a small semiconductor laser, the device is battery operated, self-contained and hand-held, and can therefore be used in any environment including outdoors.