Part of my duties in the Recovery Room includes helping perform pre-operative check-ins. We do the typical JCAHO listed patient identifier checks.

ID bracelet- check

Correct name – check

Correct birth date – check

We go through the pertinent information concerning what specific procedure is being done, please locate the area the surgeon is operating on, who is the surgeon performing the operation, etc.

All the Ga-zillion and one safety checks every hospital is bound to abide by to promote and ensure patient safety and facility compliance.

Each procedure and each surgeon has a set of pre-operative orders they write. In most cases females who are of child-bearing age are required to have a blood test to test for possible pregnancy.

This is of course a 2-fold safety measure for the patient as well as the possible fetus. It’s a fail-safe mechanism for patients who may have the need to not tell ‘the whole truth’ when asked are you, or could you be pregnant.

The other morning this particular female patient was having surgery. And she qualified for the above blood test.

Unfortunately said blood test results were for some reason late. The lateness of these results was putting a wrench into the finely tuned surgical services schedule of procedures. This particular procedure was the first of the day. So by delaying this case.. We are delaying the whole day.

And you can only imagine how everyone was not liking the word ‘delay’.

So one of the Anesthesiologist curtly asked the patient, ‘Is there a possibility of you being pregnant?’

It was a vain attempt at moving things along ‘un-officially’.

This very attractive middle-aged woman looks at the physician, bows her head in embarrassment and quietly states, “It’s been years. Lord knows I’m not pregnant!” and finishes her sentence with an innocent smile.

She had obviously revealed a lil’ more personal information than she cared to share.

The inquisitive anesthesiologist scampers out to the hall area where the surgical team was standing guard, patiently waiting for the ‘Go Sign’. This group lined both sides of the hall, everyone from the scrub techs, to the OR nurses, the surgeon and their assistants, as well as everyone from anesthesiology.

Echoing down the hall you hear, “She Says It’s Been Years!” “Let’s get her in the room” “We can start prepping her”.

I guess the word tact was not in his vocabulary that morning

Carpe Diem