surgery. The hospital bought a second probe. It came up missing, too.
How was this happening? Rumor has it they kept the third probe in a
double-lock briefcase and handed it off to each shift supervisor.
I don't have a criminal mind. I don't know how to launder money or
run numbers or steal someone's identity online. I still haven't mas-
tered basics like attaching a Word file to an email. But I want to know
how you can steal 2 probes worth $10,000 each without someone
noticing? What would the thief do with a probe? It's not like you could
pawn it like a piece of jewelry.
Surgical gray market?
I started asking questions. It was explained to me that the gray market
might operate like this. The thief sells the probe to an underground
middleman for $5,000. A facility that needs to buy a probe calls a man
about a probe. The man with the probe turns around and sells the
probe he bought for $5,000 for $8,000 — turning a tidy $3,000 profit
and saving the facility $2,000 in a used equipment purchase.
In a prior life when I was the director of surgery at a hospital, pickups,
needle holders and hemostats were always missing. Our counts were
always correct, so I thought they were being thrown away. One Saturday
I went to a flea market and there in a tent sat a scrub tech that worked
in my department. He was selling surgical instruments. Long story short,
he ceased working for the hospital very soon after that.
Is the story of the missing probe true or just an urban legend? I
don't know. Is there a theft ring going on? I don't know. If you have a
theory on the missing "stuff," let me know. In the meantime, keep
your belongings safe and your probes closer to you (eerie organ
music, please).
OSM
Reach Ms. Watkins at pwatkins12@comcast.net.
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