Got to see whats it's like for the patient!

[suanna]

I recently had a "minor" surgical proceedure at an outpatient surgical center.

1) My CRNA did tell me she was going to give me a little versed and propofol before injecting some lidocaine- she then gave the CRNA "resident" permission to do the block- as an afterthought she asked me if I minded the resident doing the block- YES, but since you have already said OK to the resident, your resident is set up for the proceedure,and you aren't I guess I'll just bite my tongue and pray. By the way -who said anything about a nerve block- what nerve, what block!!??

2) I guess you did give me some versed, and propofol- I remember having trouble concentrating, then I woke up in the OR. Please let me know when you are going to push meds on me! It won't change the outcome- it's just polite!

3) Half sedated, I became aware my surgeon (who never spoke to me before the proceedure was started) was encouraging his resident with " have you ever done this before? Why don't you .... I wasn't aware this was a teaching center for this proceedure. Please discuss WHO will be working on me before you sedate me. I wasn't pleased.

4) Post op teaching was very thorough I guess. You see I was still under the influence of the versed and have almost no clear recall of what I was told and signed. Thank goodness I'm fairly young and work in post surgery care. I can't imagine what your 80y/o patients who work as Walmart greeters do for post op guidance. Please have a responsible party present whenever a sedated patient is given important instructions.

I could go on-and-on. The trouble is the doctor I selected to do this operation is one of the most respected in the area. The center has a good reputation and no complaints before the regulatory agencies. Making the effort to do a good job would have slowed the process down a bit- they may have only been able to do 12 patients that day instead of 15- but I deserve good care, even if it cuts into the profit margin.

[meandragonbrett]

Yikes! I would have been a little upset with the anesthesia folks over that! Sorry to hear. Hope you're recovering well.

[lockheart678]

I wish healthcare professionals would become more aware of this kind of stuff. I can't even think about how many times I've seen this happen. They need to realize, just because they do this stuff multiple times every single day does not mean the patient on that table has any idea what they're doing. In my OR, it seems like most of the CRNAs do a wonderful job of talking the patient through everything that they're doing before they do it. I see a lot of epidurals put in, and it's pretty obvious whenever the pain team changes. Most of those residents do a very poor job of talking the patient through the procedure, and the attendings don't do anything about it even though they're in the room for it! I didn't realize it was that complicated to tell your patient what you're doing.