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BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Paula Watkins, RN, CNOR
An Advice Column for OR Nurses
Struggling with a workplace issue? "Dear Paula" is here to help.
D
ear Paula,
Is there no hope for polite behavior in surgery? A recent incident in our OR concerning the use of four-letter words (one of
them in particular) went beyond the reasonable ways of resolving
conflicts and has me wondering where we draw the line on surgeonstaff interactions.
What happened was: The doc was listening to his usual annoying
music during a marathon day of cases. Several of the songs on his
playlist repeated the four-letter word. The circulating nurse, who was
offended by this, counted each time the word was used, then she
actually wrote the surgeon up on an incident-andaccident form for discipline!
I'm no fan of the songs or their foul language, but
do you think she went too far? The doc has been
doing cases in this OR for a number of years, and
no one has ever complained about his choice of
music before.
— Rocked and Shocked
D
ear Rocked,
I agree with the circulator that
some music is distasteful. It
makes my ears ring and leaves a metallic taste in my mouth, and it hardly seems like
creative expression. But then, when I was growing up, my parents didn't see "She loves you, yeah,
yeah, yeah," as poetry, either.
This four-letter word is certainly more offensive than
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