Be kind

“Be kind.” I whispered to the doc as I gowned and gloved him.

To facilitate the closing of his enormous case I was going to scrub while he was closing, leaving the real scrub tech to count all ten trays.

“Be kind.” I whispered to the resident as I gowned and gloved him.

This was a new resident for us and I wanted to alert him that I was not the regularly scheduled scrub tech and he would have to be patient with me as I scrubbed the closing with him and the surgeon.

“Be kind.” I told the ambulatory care unit as I was handing them yet another add on sheet.

Each add on sheet represented a patient who was in need of care. And it was our job to render that care.

“Be kind.” I told the x-ray department while I was trying to get them to the room to do the surprise closed reduction.

I say surprise closed reduction because the message was not passed on to them for the need of x-ray.

“Be kind.” I told the endo nurse I had to call in to finish the case with us.

The message for the need of endo at the end of the case had gone awry. I had not seen any endo nurses since the end of their shift and I was making sure that there was someone available to do the endo part of the case so that the patient would no have to wait.

“Be kind.” I told my orientee as I walked her through the proper way to put formalin on specimens that don’t fit in the pre-filled container.

It has not escaped my notice that some circulators fill the specimen container with the contents of many pre-filled containers to the detriment of their health. This drives me crazy.

“Be kind.” I told the lab department when I called and asked about how to set up uncross-matched blood and if they still had a pink top tube and could cross-match the patient.

Because both arms were tucked tight to the body under the drapes, and the legs were in stirrups under the drapes and we’d had an unexpected 1500ml blood loss in five minutes.

“Be kind.” I told the recovery room nurses as I handed off the patient.

I explained the need for the conversion of the robot case to an open case. I cautioned them about the blood loss and the need for blood collection to check blood counts.

“Be kind.” I whispered to myself.