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How Do You Measure Up? - October 2013 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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OSE_1310_part3_Layout 1 10/7/13 10:33 AM Page 115 CUTTING REMARKS John D. Kelly IV, MD Help, My Equipment's on the Fritz My day fades to black when technical difficulties visit my OR. O f the many potential stressors in the OR, equipment failure might be the worst. • The video monitor is blank. As an arthroscopist, my greatest fear is video failure. I insert the scope into a knee, which happens to EQUIPMENT HASSLES Monitor not working? Turn everything off, and then on again. If this fails, call for help. have an inflated tourniquet applied, only to find that there's no picture on the screen. After inspecting the obvious — making sure the video tower is plugged in and that every connection is intact — I resort to old reliable. Turn everything off, and then on again. If this fails, I ask for the most experienced nurse STAT into my room. If he can't fix the monitor, then I deflate the tourniquet, calmly break scrub and head to the chapel. • The autoclave is busted. This is at least a 45-minute delay to run (read: flash) the back-up set. Yes, I've never encountered a 10-minute cycle that didn't take at least 45 minutes to complete. As an obsessive compulsive in recovery who gets the heebie-jeebies at the mere mention of infection, the word flash instills fear into my heart. Worse, the cycle is complete but the nurse finds a small puncture in the tray wrap. Time for another pilgrimage to the chapel. • The table is misbehaving. OR tables can be a surgeon's best friend or worst enemy. We're preparing for a knee arthroscopy and the intubated patient is secured to the table, leg holder affixed to the thigh. My final adjustment before scrubbing is to lower the end of the table so O C T O B E R 2013 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E 1 1 5

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