There is a universal truth for charge nurses. MDs might be less than truthful to get what they want.

A surgeon might whine and complain and complain some more that they absolutely need to be out by 1400. Never the six cases.

I’ve written about that before.

It is usually about flights.

Of fancy maybe.

The inverse is the surgeon who spies a very very very very minute gap in the schedule. And bluffs the charge nurse that they can absolutely do a 2 hour case in 20 minutes.

Balderdash.

It’s giving desperate. It’s giving Druzilla and Anastasia as they chop off bits of their feet to fit inside the glass slipper. Because their mother told them to to snare the prince.

The only prince around here is the sweet sweet spare time that I imagine all surgeons desire.

99% of these cases run over. And tee time is missed. And TEA time is missed. And flights that never existed are missed.

Mostly because the doctor doesn’t want to wait.

I say put them to work. Give them a mop or a wiping cloth for the room that the last patient vacated 30 seconds before. Show them how to bag trash. Show them where to put the trash.

And watch their head explode when you say that the products used have a 10 minute dry time.

Most importantly, remind them that the consent for the surgery that you both know very well will take longer than the 30 minutes promised. That consent must be signed. And the H&P written.

Or, you know, make them answer the phone that is ringing every 5 seconds. You could do.

We’ve had Epic for more than 10 years now. That is a lot of time for the computer to learn average case times and also be more truthful about how long a surgery will really take.

Surgeons don’t like being told no. But the downstream patients will appreciate you not letting them squeeze in a case that is going to take 10 minutes max.

Notice how the time goes down with each iteration.

Yeah, so do the charge nurses.