The post-it reads ‘cysto field on the screen suddenly gets cloudy. Surgeon and I both look at the hanging fluids to see if the bags have run out of fluids’.
It was almost a choreographed spot in a movie.
On the screen, the view suddenly gets bloodier.
There are only 2 reasons why:
- the hanging fluids have run dry
- the surgeon has hit something and made it bleed
The first thing to look at, and the easiest to fix, is the hanging fluids.
If they are dry then you hang more.
If they are not empty, the surgeon has to find the bleeding vessel and cauterize it.
The response to both is the same.
Fix the problem:
- hang more fluids
- get further equipment to control the bleeding
It just struck me as funny that both the surgeon and I had the same response to the bloody field.
An information seeking move.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 