Does this make sense to you?

[linda2097]

We have a plastic surgeon who is very slow. He likes to operate long hours. He often operates all day and into the night, ending around 2am. There is only one circulator and tech on call at night, and they are the ones who end up doing his plastic cases.

We have an emergency list of people who are willing to be called in the middle of the night to be asked to do an emergency case. They are not obligated to come in, but they have volunteered to be on the list to be asked to come in.

Instead of having a second call team, our management tells us to use the emergency list if we get a true emergency while the plastic surgery is still going on.

Seems to me that management is taking advantage of the list. Instead of having to pay call pay to a second call team, they have access to staff who are willing to come in even though they are not on call. It's basically a unpaid call team.

Management had 3 choices:

A. Limit the number of case the plastic surgeon can do each day.

B. Pay for a second call team.

C. Take advantage of the fact that some people are willing to come in without being on call.

They chose choice C.

Does anyone else think this is screwed up?

[maeyken]

yep... they're really taking advantage of their staff. But it's the cheapest for the bottom line which seems to be all that matters...

[TakeTwoAspirin, MSN, RN, APRN]

I agree with above. This is really taking advantage. It's sad, but I think they will only do something to change this system when someone dies because the in-house team was putting in implants, and the people good enough to come in couldn't get to the hospital in time! Perhaps then they will put their staff, and patients who truly need the hospital's OR, before their bottom line.

[nw31705]

I Do agree we have the same problem and it is very scary.We almost had an occurence where an emergency did happen while a breast reduction was still going at 12 that started that afternoon.When tragedy strikes I wonder who they r going to point fingers at.Our staff is so worn out because we work all day and all night then the next day.I believe they think we are robots.When will the madness stop.

[KayceeCA]

It makes me so sad to read about how some ORs are run, and so thankful that the OR where I work doesn't do these things. We have a regular call team which is utilized only for traumas, plus a heart team which can also be called in for traumas if the first team is in use when a second trauma comes in. The call team does stay to finish cases that run over, but only if there isn't enough evening staff to run the rooms that run over, which is rare. We don't have any surgeons who routinely run past 9pm or so, thank goodness.

It is definitely taking advantage of the staff to routinely call in non-call team employees who haven't been receiving call pay to be on standby.

[fracturenurse]

We have the same problem with a back surgeon that is so sloooooowwwwwww....You see a case by him and you know it's gonna be all day long no matter what he is doing. Same thing, they end up ending at 2 a.m. a lot of time. Same thing here...Our management has the famous words, "Anybody volunteer to work over or be available in case of a emergency?" Anything to save a buck. It's what the call team should be for.

[ShariDCST]

seems to me your anesthesia staff should be speaking to the medical board/"powers that be" about inept surgeons who cannot/will not operate efficiently and routinely subject their patients to inordinately long periods of exposure to general anesthetics! the risk factors go up exponentially after a certain number of hours of being exposed to general anesthetic, and when surgeons routinely drag their heels because they either a) don't have anything better to do with their time, or b) don't know how to do it faster and either cannot or will not learn how to do it better - then it's time for someone with the power to say something do it and advocate for the patients as well as the overworked staff members!

as for me - if you want me to be on "standby" to come in for an emergency, that is called "being on call" and it involves call pay and call back pay if something does happen, and if you want call staff, then you pay call staff pay. otherwise - no dice. and it counts towards being on the call back schedule too. call is call - i don't care what else you want to "call" it.