Asking someone to leave your room during a case...

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Specializes in Operating Room, Ortho, Neuro, Trauma.

has anyone ever had to ask someone to leave their room during a case while you were circulating? it happened to me this week. i had a scrub tech come in and try and take over my room and change things up (moving my set-up, trash, dressing stand, etc..). she also took it upon herself to "decide" that she was going to scrub in and assist and be an extra pair of hands---when she was not even assigned to this room!

i asked the surgeon if he wanted an assistant and he said "no", but she scrubbed in anyway. when i was going to count with "my" tech who was retracting and (easily) counting rays with one hand, this other one was trying to grab them out of her hand to count with me and neither one of us wanted to count with her b/c she was not part of the case.

next, after she broke scrub, the surgeon was closing and i pulled my dressing table, water basin for plaster, and trash receptacle to receive drapes down to the bottom of the field. i'm very organized and ocd:clown:! but she put on gloves and moved all my stuff out of the way. i moved it right back. then she moved it again and i asked her to please not touch my stuff. then she told me that "well you don't scrub so you don't know how things work" :eek: oh no she just didn't! i placed my stuff where i wanted it and firmly said don't touch it again. she kept on about how the dr. was going to do this and the table was going to go here and my stuff was in the way.

finally, i had had it! i turned to her and said please leave the room, she folded her arms, bobbed her head, and fluttered her eyes and very vehemently said "no". this continued for 4 more times. and she wouldn't budge. so i left to go get the charge nurse who was no where to be found. so i went back in the room and said "her name, i am the nurse, this is my room and you need to leave. she finally left.

i was just wondering if anyone has ever had a problem with a person in the or and had to ask them to leave. if you did, how did you handle it?

thanks for listening and any input would be great to hear about!

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Specializes in ICU, Home Health, Camp, Travel, L&D.

Oh, no, she didn't!

When last I checked, the circulator runs the room. And, hello, must of us *can* scrub (OB circulators, anyway).

You did the right thing. IF I've said it once...what you permit, you promote.

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Specializes in Operating Room, Ortho, Neuro, Trauma.

Yea, well I wanted to tell her "well you're not a RN so you don't know how this end works"!!!!

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Specializes in Operating Room.

Oh my! I hope I am never in the situation. I think you did the right thing.

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Specializes in OR.

I once had to make an announcement in a trauma for anyone who was not needed in the case to leave the room because there were probably 20 people in there (most of them standing around getting in the way) and this guy was in very bad shape. I know they all paid attention to me when I said it, but then they just turned their heads and went back to what they were doing. It's so irritating! They were not only disrespecting me, but my attending anesthesiologist and one of my residents who was scrubbed in chimed in and agreed with me! After a few minutes they left, but they should have just done what I said, considering it was my room and I needed space to work.

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Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

OP, I work with a tech that is much the same way. Controlling as a bad mother-in-law! The fact that she was not assigned to the room and the fact that the surgeon didn't want her there would have been my cue to boot her butt out right then. You have GOT to nip that in the bud at the beginning of the case. I would have gotten on the phone to the charge nurse as soon as the surgeon said "no". There are plenty of other things she could have been doing like stocking rooms or pulling supplies for the next day's cases.

Write her up. Fill out an incident report. She must be held accountable or she will continue with this bossiness. She obviously needs to be reined in. Her behavior was disruptive, and that should be the basis of your write up.

Sheesh! What a jackwagon!

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Specializes in Operating Room, Ortho, Neuro, Trauma.

Write her up. Fill out an incident report. She must be held accountable or she will continue with this bossiness. She obviously needs to be reined in. Her behavior was disruptive, and that should be the basis of your write up.

HA! Funny you say that, she reported ME!!!. I went to my director the next morning to let her know of the incident (we all work on evening shift) and she told me that she had already gotten an e-mail from her and the only thing she wanted to know was did I scream at her. She stated that I screamed at her when instead I wasn't sure she was hearing me when it took me 5X's to ask her to leave the room. I told my director how greatful that I was that there were 2 other ppl there to watch the entire thing unfold and just ask them.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

I had to kick two people out of a ruptured AAA once. The PCA from PACU took it upon himself to bring the unit secretary to the room so they both could watch. As it was, there were too many people in the room, so I told him they both had to leave. He actually tried to fight with me- saying he'd been in to observe before and no one else had ever complained. I still kicked them out, and he tried to have me written up for it. He eventually ended up getting fired (not for this, for multiple other issues). I say, if you aren't needed (maybe if we'd needed someone to act as a blood/lab runner), didn't even ask permission, and it's already crazy with extra people (additional surgeon, extra surg tech to help with retraction, additional circulator to help anesthesia with checking blood, circulating anesthesiologist overseeing multiple rooms but spending most of it in this one, CRNA, and anesthesia tech), then you just don't belong.

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Specializes in 2 years school nurse, 15 in the OR!.

Scrub tech no, but reps yes...Ours seem to think they run the room they are in. Sometimes they just show up in other rooms to chat with a nurse, or to ass kiss the surgeon. I had one that showed up in a cysto once (he's an ortho rep!) I told him to get out, he laughed and kept chatting with the scrub. I looked at him very matter of fact, and said you have 5 seconds to leave this room...He left.

I would have done the same thing you did though! Good for you!:yeah:

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Specializes in Ortho.

I haven't had to put anyone out of my room yet, but I have a feeling it will happen. I am a new RN in the OR but I worked as a CST for almost 9 years before going to nursing school. I was more comfortable as a tech to put someone in there place because I had "been there, done that" . Now, being in a new role, I have found myself to not be as outspoken as I was in the past.

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Specializes in PICU, OR, Transplant, IT.
Scrub tech no, but reps yes...Ours seem to think they run the room they are in. Sometimes they just show up in other rooms to chat with a nurse, or to ass kiss the surgeon. I had one that showed up in a cysto once (he's an ortho rep!) I told him to get out, he laughed and kept chatting with the scrub. I looked at him very matter of fact, and said you have 5 seconds to leave this room...He left.

I would have done the same thing you did though! Good for you!:yeah:

+1 - be strong, hold your ground. As the non-scrubbed person you end up playing traffic cop sometimes, but depending on the scenario, it becomes an infection control/patient safety/privacy/HIPAA issue. Some reps seem conditioned to not care if the patient is even asleep before coming in the room, let alone draped. I think the example fracturenurse cites would have been asked not to return after a stunt like that. Amazing what some people think they can get away with.

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