Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

Comfy ORs - June 2014 - 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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1 6 7 J U N E 2 0 1 4 | O U T P AT 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 John D. Kelly IV, MD CUTTING REMARKS Recovery Room Blues Things don't always go as planned in PACU. I love my job. I get to help folks every day and rejoice when patients tell me that their shoulder pain has gone or that they can sleep at night. Sadly, not every patient encounter is wine and roses. Every surgeon and nurse knows that in a given day, anything can happen. Here are some of the nightmares I have experienced after successful surgeries. • Narcotized nightmare. One unfortunate event I see is the overly narco- tized patient. Perhaps these souls are more sensitive to morphine than an in-law is to criticism. Or, perhaps they lied about reactions to med- ications. Regardless, my worst memories involve hearing the dreaded words: "code blue PACU." After completing the successful surgeries and assuring the families that "the case went well," I have suffered through several, ahem, events in the PACU. On one occasion, while scrubbed in for surgery, the head nurse sauntered in and exclaimed "Dr. Kelly, your last patient is coding!" Three Hail Marys and 2 Xanax pills later, I discovered my petite female patient had an extreme sensitivity to morphine. Micrograms could turn her into the Mummy. Thank God for Narcan! On another occasion, when visiting a post-op patient in the PACU, I discovered Perhaps nothing is more troubling than seeing a normally good-natured person become Rambo before my very eyes. OS_1406_part3_Layout 1 6/13/14 11:56 AM Page 167

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