~LIFE IN THE OR~

Okay, I haven't posted a "Life in the OR" for awhile. There is a reason for that, I have been too close to tears for the last 5 months to really be able to talk about my job let alone really write about it. I can say that it is getting better but, I still don't like it very much and would really like to be able to say that I do so, obviously it hasn't gotten that much better. I have started to anticipate better but, the reading the mind part of the job hasn't kicked in yet. It gets me in trouble almost everyday. Man, I wish that would start working!

I am always on pins and needles when I have to be in OR #1. It is the major plastic's room. In fact I don't know if there has ever been any other surgery done in that room other than "plastic surgery". My good friend is one of the doctors that frequents that OR on a regular basis...twice a week. Good friendships go out the window in OR#1. In fact, your lucky if your called by your name! Things are expected to run like clockwork and nothing, NOTHING should ever go wrong! My doctor friend is very particular ( what surgeon isn't) when it comes to what I lovingly refer to as his "potions". Now, all of the surgeons have medications that they use before, during and after surgery but, my friend takes it to an all time O.C.D. high. All of his medications that he injects and uses are drawn up and pre-measured before the surgery begins. The other surgeons medications are basically the same, easy to mix and simple to have ready. Not my friend... His is a process that makes me VERY nervous but, I am getting used to it and more comfortable all the time with his "Monk" tendencies. This is how I begin my day in OR #1. Usually, the fingernails are history before the surgery begins.

Today I was asked to go to his locker ( in the men's room ) and bring him some suture that he had brought with him and left in there. As a circulator, I am not scrubbed in or sterile so it is up to me to get whatever is needed for the doctor who is but, come on, the men's room! Yup, off I go, I knock on the "men's" locker room door and finding no one there, I quickly ran in, grabbed the suture out of his locker (the one with the red tag hanging "neatly from the lock) and ran back out without "seeing" anything. Hehe. I took it into the OR and opened the suture that I had taken directly from "THE BOX"...WRONG suture. Of course, it is my fault because I should have known that what was "IN" the box was not what it said it was "ON" the box right? I then get the lecture about NEVER handing a doctor anything that you haven't looked at...I looked at it, It said it was the right stuff on the box! I even showed it to the doctor before opening it and got the "nod". Why would I ever think that Dr. O.C.D. AKA MONK would mix two different types of suture in the same box...Now, I ask you, put yourself in my Crocks and tell me how you would handle that. Oh, I left out the part about answering his personal phone calls that come into the OR every 10 min. or so on a phone that I can't figure out. Calling to make appts. for him while trying to do my job on a phone I can't figure out. Making sure that his "Talk Radio" station is doing just the right amount of Bama Bashing on a phone I can't figure out... All the while hoping that not one machine goes down or nothing hits the floor, all medications are ready to give, everything is in the room that he will ask for, his stool is where he can reach it, until the case is finished! This can sometimes take HOURS! I just smiled with my eyes cuz I have a mask on... and said, "Your right, I should have noticed that it was the wrong suture...you see I have found that it is hard for the doctor to be mad at you when you are nice!

Things I did wrong today:

1. There wasn't a tourniquet... ( Wasn't on the order but, that's the mind reading part that I haven't quite got a handle on yet...)

2. I walked out of the room at the wrong time...It was to find a pathology report for him but, that did NOT matter...

3. I stacked the implants improperly... Sideways instead of up and down (Monkism).

4. I missed a call... Stupid phone.

5. I didn't put a sticker on his paper work...It was his own "personal" paper work, should I really be going through that stuff??? It says how much stuff costs etc...

6. I handed him the wrong suture...Yea, we already went over that one...

Did you know that it takes 100 sincere and genuine "positive" comments to make up for 1 negative one? Doctors don't...They feel that it is their divine right to say and do things that no one else would ever think kind or proper but...comes with the territory I suppose. The unspoken right to every now and again be a jerk and get away with it!

The reasons I like this job...Sometimes I am home by 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. I LOVE that. I know that I go in early and that I am still putting in 10 hours or more but, it really seems like I am getting off early! I still have time to actually DO stuff! Once in awhile I get to work with doctors that are very pleasant and fun. Yes, there really are some of those out there and it is with great pleasure that I point out to our young and impressionable medical students just who they are, and why they should emulate them.