With What Other Disciplines Should We Work?

CHAPTER 6 With What Other Disciplines Should We Work?




Cooperation among specialties, especially between anesthesiology and surgery, is the stuff of legend. Of note, a legend is defined as “a story coming down from the past; one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable.”


Try verifying this legend.


A 68-year-old man with benign prostatic hypertrophy was on the OR table, spinal anesthetic in place and functioning well. He was a calm man requiring little sedation, so he was quite awake and aware of his surroundings though, of course, unable to move his lower body with the spinal anesthetic on board. The drapes were up and the circulator was prepping the patient.


His urologic surgeon and his anesthesiologist were discussing the schedule in a manner most heated. Both doctors were standing to the left of the OR table, on the patient’s side of the drapes, so the patient, merely by turning his head to the left, could see them.


And, of course, he could hear them too.


“They was sayin’ somethin’ about some other guy, I guess it was someone gonna have the same thing as me, you know, the ream out job of the prostate,” the patient said. “And they’s gettin’ louder, you know, which first I think is kinda funny ’cause I thought doctors just talk that quiet kind of ‘I’m real smart and you’re not, so I’ll take this real slow’ kind of talk.


“But now they’s yellin’ and start to pushin’ and I’m thinkin’, ‘Hell’s bells who’s gonna do the ream job if one of em cold cocks the other one?’ and sure enough they start throwin’ punches. I’m not kiddin’.


“Well I had to laugh cause I thrown a few punches in my day and these docs here they look more like girls fightin’ and pretty soon it’s a huggy up and down to the ground they go and they’re rollin’ around. And now the one nurse comes around and spill some brown stuff out a little plastic dish and she’s yellin’ and people comin’ in hollerin’ and oh my God such a sight to see and here right in the hospital and me so numb and jes’ layin’ there with all my privacy danglin’ in the breeze for all the world to see.”


Suffice it to say, there is room in this world for more cooperation between the specialties. What better place to accomplish this than the simulator!


The simulator is just the place to mix and match the various medical elements, getting them to work together in a crisis, iron out who does what, and most importantly to start to talk to each other.
















The list goes on. In the Simulator, any combination, any threesome of different specialties and training can work together. You can put together entire teams, for example look at all the people involved in a code.











A whole army of people descends on a code, each with a certain role to play. And rather than working together the first time in a real code, it is better to practice together the first time in a mock code.

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May 31, 2016 | Posted by in ANESTHESIA | Comments Off on With What Other Disciplines Should We Work?

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