OR Pet peeves

Specialties Operating Room

Published

Having worked in the OR for years, have you developed any pet peeve? Stuff co-workers do that bugs you...daily situations that irritate you? I'm really easy going most of the time but on a looong busy day, there are things that bugs me.

* anesthesiologist on your tail, "Can we come to the OR with the next patient now? , knowing that you literally just came from PACU dropping your last patient, you haven't even been back to the room yet, people are still cleaning. We are a teaching hospital so they work in tandem, resident or fellow goes to PACU with the last patient, attending goes to see the next patient.

*variation on the first one, they actually brought the patient back to the OR and you haven't seen them yet, haven't checked the paperworks or they brought the patient, you've seen them BUT you are just about to open the OR pack with the tech.

* another variation, you are in an ENT room cruising along with BMT's and T&A's with like 5-10 min turnovers and then you have a FESS or a Tympanomastoidectomy next and the anesthesiologist don't seem to understand why you need more time to set up!

Okay ,enough with the Anesthesiology bashing :), I do love 'em and those that work with me enough knows not to do these type of nonsense.

* a surprise not indicated on the schedule, you go see the patient after you've set up the room for an open case and the consent says Laparoscopic. Then you run back to the room, call for the laparoscopy cart and grab the video monitor etc.

* a multi specialty procedure with about 4-6 surgeons and the pagers are going off non stop. :banghead:

* a surgeon, the moment the pager goes off---what is it? who is paging me? then you relay the info from the floor nurse paging and the surgeon goes into a tirade about why he was paged in the first place for something so trivial.... lol...

* a tech who asks for sutures one at a time...sometimes this is from inexperience so I try not to be grumpy. I'm not a lazy circulator by any means but it would help if you look how big your incision is and you know you are gonna need more than 1 suture so I can go on with the rest of my circulating tasks.

* a break person who immediately writes their time in when they see you while you are still giving them report. Do you ever have Break Nazis in your OR? Not a minute late or you get a page or a lecture.

* a charge nurse who forgets to assign another nurse to relieve you at the end of your shift or who just expects you to finish your case and does not tell you that there was no one else available. (happened in some traveling assignments I had).

That's all I can think of now. Please share yours.

Specializes in OR, community nursing.
House supervisors who call you and don't know anything about the call case or who to call. I recently had one ask me for a bowel resection, "Do you need anesthesia for this?" Where do they find these people? :no:

Love this one! Need a good laugh today. Thank you!

Specializes in O.R., ED, M/S.

How about calling the floor to let them know you will be sending for Mrs So and So in about 30 minutes. Transport goes up in 25 minutes and seems to take forever to get back to the holding room. You ask them what took them so long only to be told by the nurse, " I didn't know this patient was going to surgery"! What happened to communication between the desk person and also what did they talk about at change of shift about this patient who has been scheduled for 24 hours!!!!

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
House supervisors who call you and don't know anything about the call case or who to call. I recently had one ask me for a bowel resection, "Do you need anesthesia for this?" Where do they find these people? :no:

And the ones that scare me the most are the ones that have been doing that job for at least 10 years, but you only know they've done this for that long, because they SAID so, it wasn't OBVIOUS:icon_roll

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

* a surgeon, the moment the pager goes off---what is it? who is paging me? then you relay the info from the floor nurse paging and the surgeon goes into a tirade about why he was paged in the first place for something so trivial.... lol...

I usually say "Your colleuges get paged to death, maybe one of them has a solution, ask 'em". The only one that we have who does that (yeah we're missing out average quota i'm sure lol) is fresh out of school and whines about being on call. Uh, there ARE other lines of work that don't require call, duh.

Specializes in NICU, ER, OR.

RElieving someone at end of shift...and hearing: "YOu should have everything you need allready up, or in the room"....yeah, right...thats a sure sign that I will need to run for at least 5 separate things. Urgently.

Another: A surgeon, on the way out the door, saying "I want/need a real fast turn over time" I feel like saying, just once, "Oh good-- glad you told me, because if you hadnt, we would go for a sandwich in between cases, like we usually do"

Specializes in OR Internship starting in Jan!!.
"Oh good-- glad you told me, because if you hadnt, we would go for a sandwich in between cases, like we usually do"

Ha! Doesn't everyone eat a nice PB&J between cases? :chuckle

another: a surgeon, on the way out the door, saying "i want/need a real fast turn over time" i feel like saying, just once, "oh good-- glad you told me, because if you hadnt, we would go for a sandwich in between cases, like we usually do"

hate that line and would love using that response just once!!!

Specializes in O.R., ED, M/S.

It kind of makes me slow down a bit. I get insulted with that line or the one about going to another room to speed things up!

Specializes in ER/ OR/ PACU and now Occupational Health.

Oh my favorite....

House super calls (from the OR desk extension) on a Saturday morning saying that the borrowed instruments for the big ortho case in an hour are here and when you ask if they are ready and sterile you can actually hear her unlatching the pans and opening the lids as she says "I don't know". uuuhhhhhh DUUUUHHHH

Oh but even freakin better..... when your on scrub call and just drive 45 minutes home and pull in the drive way only to get called right back for a freakin REMOVAL OF HEMODIALYSIS CATH!!!! What????? So you drive back in and the surgeon decides (when you finally get there) just to throw on some gloves and snip the sutures and pull it in holding!!!!! AAAGGGHHHHH Kill me!

Oh another good one...when you are scrubbing and have opened all of your stuff and are ready and waiting on the doc and your nurse comes in the room (while you are NOT in the room) and takes an instument set off of your freakin table because "you won't need that"

Being a new circulator after scrubbing for the last 8 years my new pet peeve is other nurses treating me like a retard because I am a new RN when they were just content on asking my advice on stuff 6 months ago when I was a tech! Sorry to say but... I am hating being a circulator so far. My only other nursing pet peeve is trying to work and train in a room with another nurse because I can never get my own pattern going because either they have already done it, moved it, charted it, put it up, never got it, or don't want to let me do it! I am so ready to fly solo.

Oh my favorite....

House super calls (from the OR desk extension) on a Saturday morning saying that the borrowed instruments for the big ortho case in an hour are here and when you ask if they are ready and sterile you can actually hear her unlatching the pans and opening the lids as she says "I don't know". uuuhhhhhh DUUUUHHHH

Quite possibly the funniest surgery-related story I have ever heard. :yeah:

What did she say next?..... "I don't know if it's sterile but it doesn't look bloody."

OK...from a tech, soon to be RN..here are my pet peeves.

1. Coming into a room at 0630 AM and finding a table full of suture and supplies that the previous day's tech and RN left for you.

2. Getting called in on the weekend and waiting 1-2 hours because the Surgeon is still working at another facility.

3. Seeing some of my fellow techs cozy up to surgeons to the point that it is nauseating. A memo for you guys: MD's hang out with MD's and for the most part don't consider techs (and RN's) to be in their circle.

4. Working with rookie surgeons can be painful. Nothing beats 4 hour Lap Choles, especially when the tech is helping to identify anatomy.

5. Any debridement on an overweight patient's cocyx or sacrum. I know it needs to be done, but it don't change the fact that it's stinky,messy and a pain to position.

6. OR politics. No matter how hard you try, someone will dislike you and constantly look for reasons to knife you in the back. A personal story...when I was accepted into a Nursing program, our Manager put a congratulations note on our marker board. So, a few of the nurses and techs wrote some nice things underneath. One of my coworkers edited a message that originally said "love ya" to hate you..LOL.. Nothing beats having an enemy you weren't aware of.

That's my list so far...........

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Another: A surgeon, on the way out the door, saying "I want/need a real fast turn over time" I feel like saying, just once, "Oh good-- glad you told me, because if you hadnt, we would go for a sandwich in between cases, like we usually do"

I stopped getting that when i replied with either "well, people in hell want ice water, also" or "well, grab a mop, and get to cleaning, this room doesn't clean by itself." I've also used this one "i'm going to PEE sometime today, and right now is a great time for me to let it loose."

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