turn over a room after a messy shoulder arthroscopy once a week
before they go plastering every surface with graphs and charts about
stupid turnovers times.
Equipment that works. I believe manufacturers line the mother-
boards of OR equipment with gremlin eggs that hatch in 9
months, causing the machines to burp and spit up. Is it too much to
ask for equipment that powers up and is ready to roll every time you
plug it in and turn it on?
Mandatory retirement. Some docs should be forced to lay down
their scalpels at a certain age.
Pocket stuffers. A circulating nurse should have 3 pens in her
scrub top (a pair and a spare) and scissors in her scrub pant pock-
et. A small notebook with surgeon information and a phone to Google
medical terms and spelling (our EMR doesn't have spell-check) in the left
jacket pocket, and a taser or stun gun in the right.
Speed dial. Surgeons will store the numbers to the head of cen-
tral sterile and the materials manager on speed dial. This way,
they can skip the middleman (circulator) when they can't locate their
must-have tools, when the instrument they need is still sitting in
decontam or when somebody forgets to reorder supplies.
A lunch break. Everything stops at noon and OR workers get a
proper lunch break. Maybe there should be free tea and cook-
ies. Espresso would be a nice touch, too.
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