Paula Watkins, RN, CNOR
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
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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 | J U LY 2 0 1 4
Sis Boom Bah
Every surgical team needs cheerleaders.
I
t's no secret that each of us on
the surgical team thinks that
our role in the OR is the tough-
est and the most essential job.
Scrub nurses and techs think
that, without them, there'd be no
one at the surgeon's right hand to
offer assistance or pass instru-
ments. Who else is doing the job?
they ask. Circulators don't do anything but sit on their tuchus at the com-
puter for the entire case.
Circulators, on the other hand, argue that you can't possibly know what's
going on outside of your little sterile world when your attention can never
stray outside of it. Did you notice me crawling around the surgeon's feet? I
can assure you that it wasn't some sort of worship ritual. The frequency
with which they have to troubleshoot electronic equipment that was working
just fine not more than 5 minutes ago leads them to believe someone's out to
get them (and one of these days, we're going to find out who).
Anesthesia providers do their own thing, of course, and as a group they
do it rather well. Still, you'll occasionally encounter one who acts as
though he's never wrapped a blood pressure cuff around a patient's arm in
his entire career. It was a mild shock to me that time I saw an anesthesia
provider hand a cuff to "the turnover help" and ask her to put the cuff on
the patient for him.
Finding your role
We're called a surgical team for a reason. Just like on other teams, we have
designated positions. And just like on other teams, the people in those posi-
Surgical nursing is like cheerleading.
We've all climbed a pyramid
of stepstools to fix elevated
equipment with silk tape.
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