Clinical: Day Two

Today I had an opportunity to see a bit about the various roles and responsibilities of the nurse manager. all I could think was, "Poor Dave."  It was also an example how one event has a ripple effect on all the areas of the surgical center.

It all started when Dr. A an additional case on his morning case load that the surgical center was not aware of. Apparently, t It wasn't a big surgery and would only take about 45 minutes to complete. So, the OR charge nurse let the SDS charge nurse know to make the pre-op patients aware that things were running a little bit behind. Then, the OR charge nurse called the next surgeon, Dr. B, to let her know that her cases would be starting about 30 minutes late, to which Dr. B replied she was going to cancel all her cases for the day. Turns out, this particular surgeon has done this before, and then called back and states she changed her mind after the patients had already been called and told their surgeries were cancelled. So, Dave gets busy calling Dr. Bigler (the surgical center's medical director) to explain the situation and the staff's concern that once they call and cancel Dr. B's patients for the day, she will again change her mind and they will be in a new mess. Dr. Bigler relay's that he had spoken with Dr. B the previous night and that she was having a difficult time finding a proctor to attend her surgeries and that he was surprised to learn she hadn't called and cancelled her cases the night before. Dave then get's on the phone with Dr. B to confirm that she is not coming in and find, in fact, that it is the lack of a proctor that is the problem and the 30 minute delay was the out she needed to cancel her cases. After speaking with all of the doctors, Dave then gets on the phone personally calling to cancel Dr. B's patients and apologize for the inconvenience.

The situation was so frustrated and could have been prevented several ways. First of all there was a communication breakdown between Dr. A's office and the surgical center. Because UVOC didn't know of the additional case until the patient was checking in, that set things back about 30 minutes. Secondly, if Dr. B had called and cancelled her cases the night before, instead of waiting until 30 minutes before her patients were supposed to arrive at UVOC. I'm sure the patients were frustrated as well, because they had not eaten since midnight and had cleared out the entire day for their surgeries.

I was very impressed with Dave and how well he kept his cool and handled the situation. He communicated with his staff effectively and efficiently and I was also extremely impressed that he took the time to call the patients himself when it would have been easy to delegate, or pass it off, to one of his nurses.