Surgeons who scrub early

shodobe · Mar 29, 2009

Probably a silent way to hurry you up, but I tend to ignore them as much as possible. Most of the time you can't find them because their out on the floor or whatever. They have shown up and you think they are around, but not really. It is a rarity they are in the room when draping occurs or you prepping.

GadgetRN71, ASN, RN · Mar 29, 2009

Our surgeons don't do this. We are a teaching hospital though, so the residents will prep and everyone participates in positioning. The surgeons also drape the patient, especially in ortho. They are meticulous with their draping.

shodobe · Mar 29, 2009

Our surgeons don't do this. We are a teaching hospital though, so the residents will prep and everyone participates in positioning. The surgeons also drape the patient, especially in ortho. They are meticulous with their draping.

Teaching hospitals are so nice, having all those extra bodies and hands to help.

GadgetRN71, ASN, RN · Mar 29, 2009

Yep, most of the time it is nice. One in a rare while, you get the "too many cooks spoil the soup" syndrome but not often.

OR male nurse · Apr 4, 2009

When surgeons gown and glove when you're still positioning the patient, do you think they do it to pressure you to speed up?

You mean while they are staring over your shoulder tapping their foot watching you place the foley and watching you prep the incision sight ?

I pretty much ignore this now. When I first started in the OR it used to drive me crazy and unnerve me. Now I just do what I have to do and they can wait until I'm finished with my pre operative tasks and my patient is strapped in, bair hugger in place, bovie pad placed and all is set. When I'm done, they can have the patient.

I've even made comments to surgeons that "once the RN is finished, you can start your operation" As mentioned in other posts, you have to learn how to take it and give it back as well.

Editorial Team / Admin · Apr 5, 2009

Wow, I'd love to have some of our surgeons scrub early. We page them, they call back a few minutes later, and then they STILL don't show up for another 10-15. The majority of them are good in that we page before we begin prepping and they're in the OR as we're draping, but there are a few that sometimes I feel like I should page them before I even have the patient in the room.

Scrubby · Apr 6, 2009

We have surgeons who scrub way too early as well. The other day I had a junior surgeon interrupt my count because he wanted me to pass the prep to him, I just ignored him but he became quite persistant until I told him to back off.

For this reason I always scrub new nurses really early because I don't think it's fair for them to learn under so much pressure.

KayceeCA · Apr 7, 2009

We have a couple of surgeons that do this. It used to make me nervous, but not anymore. I just go about the business of getting my patient ready for surgery. If the surgeon wants to sit back and watch, that's fine by me. I'm not going to cut any corners just because the surgeon is hovering. As a previous poster said, once the RN is finished, the surgeon can start the operation, but not until then.