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.

I've got a few more as well. How about when a medical student walks into the room and asks what they should do with their gown and gloves. Well, what do you think you should do with them?

When a resident drops a vessel loop on the floor and decides not to let anyone know it's there.

When you've got an incorrect count and the surgeons just keep on closing, acting like nothing is wrong.

When the surgeons are closing, you've just finished hanging all the sponges and taken off your gloves, and the tech throws another sponge into the kick bucket.

When the tech doesn't pull suture for any of the cases throughout the day.

When you're about to do a whipple, and discover when interviewing the patient that the surgeons did not even order a type and screen, and the nurse checking the patient in never even thought to call the surgeons and get a verbal order.

When people complain because they get put in a specialty they don't like for one case. You're getting paid regardless of what you are doing, so shut up and get over it.

When your relief shows up 45 minutes late because they knew that the case was almost finished and thought that you should just finish it yourself, even though they just clocked in and you've been working 10 hours.

My favorite one has to be when anesthesia sticks their head in the door and asks me if I am ready to bring the patient back. When I am in the middle of counting an instrument set, does it look like I'm ready?

Specializes in Surgery.
My biggest pet peeve is surgeons who after a case sit down and watch as the nursing staff clean up the mess. Most of them don't even offer to help out, I wish they'd just go and have a coffee and leave us be. Then they proceed to criticise us for taking too long between cases (our average turnaround time is 10 minutes which isn't too bad). But what really makes my blood boil is when they start pestering us 'is someone bringing the patient in?' when there is still blood all over the floor :banghead: .

I work with a surgeon who will get the cleaning supplies and actually turn the room over with us! He even mops! :bugeyes:

Specializes in Surgery.

I bet another PACU nurse pet peeve is when the circulators don't call ahead when they're coming back with their patients! I've been guilty of that a few times!

Specializes in OR,ICU.

just one of the many pet peeves, there are so many, is the surgeon asking for equipment/or suture that we have had back ordered for weeks which he/she is well aware of but they still say "but i just used it yesterday".:banghead:

Specializes in Peri-Op.

Like a gynecare morselator!!! Yeah lets keep trying to post lsh's....

Specializes in CST in general surgery, LDRs, & podiatry.
just one of the many pet peeves, there are so many, is the surgeon asking for equipment/or suture that we have had back ordered for weeks which he/she is well aware of but they still say "but i just used it yesterday".:banghead:

"right - and you used up the last one we had/all of it when you did that - so now it's gone!"

"in which parallel universe?"

"must have been a different hospital - we haven't had any here for (fill in the blank) weeks/months now."

"you must have been asleep for weeks/months then - because that's how long it's been since we've had any here."

choose any or all of the above - whatever fits your particular needs/mood/facility policy/etc................

there are a few niggly things that annoy me, but my biggest peeve is the assumption my a small section of society that I get some perverse pleasure out of working with patients who are unconscious, or worse, that I get some sort of pleasure out of seeing my patient all trussed up and positioned with their bits on show!

Similarly, the amount of times I've heard some variation of 'how can she (gay female colleague) say gynae surgery makes her squeamish? She loves lady partss!'.

in case I'm not being clear enough, surgery has nothing to do with sex!

sorry, am a little sensitive at the moment. had this poor teenaged girl come in recently for an ortho procedure, shaking and crying and generally terrified because her mother had stressed to her that she should make sure her underwear was still on when she woke up because 'once you're asleep they can do anything they like to you and you can't stop them, and you'll never know if they violated you'.

thanks mum, way to prepare your daughter for her knee scope.

Specializes in NICU, ER, OR.

a patient accepting an organ, but refuses any blood products. *****

doesnt an ORGAN supercede blood? It makes no sense to me....

Furthermore, I dont think they should be allowed to get the organ. If they need blood products, and die, of something so simple as not receiving blood, than that organ is wasted when someone else could have had it.

a patient accepting an organ, but refuses any blood products. *****

doesnt an ORGAN supercede blood? It makes no sense to me....

Furthermore, I dont think they should be allowed to get the organ. If they need blood products, and die, of something so simple as not receiving blood, than that organ is wasted when someone else could have had it.

it's probably no use telling you this, since I can't actually produce the article, but I did an assignment on organ transplantation and found this great article that explained quite clearly and practically the reasons why certain religions say yes to organs but not blood and vice versa.

I still thought after reading it that if someones willing to give you something to make your life better/easier/healthier with no health benefit for themselves, repay their kindness by grabbing it with both hands and making the most of it, but it helped me to actually understand why other people might feel differently, rather than just thinking 'well it's their choice'.

In a practical sense though, I've never seen a transplant where the patient hasn't been given blood, and if i was a transplant surgeon or an anaesthetist, I reckon I'd feel pretty edgy operating without that option.

Yeah I agree with everything,but I scrub and often ask for suture one at a time. I expect the nurse to bring back several if she has to leave room. With the cost of everything I am not putting unused suture in the trash. Yes i agree that if there is a large incision ask for enough at the time. I open very conservitly unless it is a emergency and time is critical.

Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

How about techs that don't read the preference card and then ask you for things during the case that they should have pulled? I had a tech do this to me repeatedly. When I asked her why she didn't pull some of the things she obviously needed for the case, she replied, "Well, that is your JOB. You are supposed to run and get things for me." I just shook my head and said, "I am not a glorified waitress for you, and my job is to take care of the PATIENT." She didn't get it...

Another pet peeve of mine is when you are gathering all of your supplies, Central Sterile is suddenly out of things like, oh a MAYO STAND COVER or a back table cover-so frustrating! Then when you explain to the surgeon that you can't start the case because you are still gathering supplies, they get mad and blame YOU!

I think this pet peeve is my favorite one: You are told you have an urgent case to do. You set up your room, help the tech open, and when you go and see the patient in holding, they have NO CONSENT! Nevermind the fact that they have been in the hospital for days and the progress notes the day before state that the plan is to go to the OR. This is especially tedious when the patient is either a ward of the state or lives in a nursing home with no family to sign the consent. Then you have to get the state administrators on board, alert the surgeons to the delay and then get an earful from all parties...the poor patient is the one who suffers for the delay.

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