OR nurses

[sharann]

What would happen to a circulator in your hospital if they went as far as to get the wrong patient onto the OR table before the patient was identified as the wrong one? This is as specific as I will get, reminding you that I am not an OR nurse,but in PACU.

Would you be terminated, forced to resign or suspended only?

I have seen the OR staff harassed into "hurry hurry" but I still think that the ID band check beforehand would avoid this. I know I can' speak from experience here, but in my dept we always(ALWAYS)check the ID band upon arrival, just afrer the O2 goes on.

[grimmy, RN]

here's yet another reason why the time-out is so important:

just last week, we were doing a pneumonectomy (removing an entire lung) - the correct lung was identified by the surgical fellow, and everyone in the team assented. but i think anesthesia had a brain-fart. the pneumonectomy side of the bronchus was intubated instead of the other, non-operative side. big oops, and took at least an extra 45 minutes to fix. this was not identified until we were ready to staple the bronchus in question. mind you, this is not the same as actually cutting out the incorrect lung, but it was a major problem, and could have had disastrous implications if no one had caught it before the bronchus was stapled.

[sharann, BSN, RN]

Update:

This nurse was suspended then alowed back to work. Our manager quit however. Related, nope just good timing on his part. Had a death in the OR....