I’m starting to change my mind about protocols. Individuals are fallible. Letting nurses and RT have space to do things results on you depending on that individual being intelligent and u get in variable levels of care for the same cases/patient situations. No consistency. Protocols at least allow us to meet some minimum level of care. We need them for the stupid providers. But they suck for the smart people.
One problem with protocols is that they establish a "standard of care". Hence, if one overrides them, and something bad happens, it may even come across as malpractice. That's the reason even smart people do ACLS in stupid ways, killing patients every day (e.g. by bolusing tons of epi, by wasting time on intubation in the early phases etc.). To me, that's proof what happens when you let laypeople play expert. There is nothing more painful to watch than a brainwashed trainee running a knee-jerk code in the ICU.
There are certain things non-experts should almost never do, such as directing ACLS. Instead of inventing more stupid protocols, we should invent ways to have true experts available for every one of these situations, especially in the hospital (e.g. ACLS should always be run by an EM doc). With ERAS and pain control, the experts are already in the OR; they are called anesthesiologists. So there should not be protocols in the OR, except when these anesthesiologists deem them helpful (the same way I appreciate potassium replacement or hyperglycemia protocols in the ICU). And they should be easy to override, without any pushback from bean counters or surgeons.
The problem with protocols is that they are aimed to replace smart people, but they rarely do. They just empower the idiots, and make them dangerous ("a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"). They just put the patients at different kind of risks than the ones they are aimed to replace. I remember when I once stopped an amio load early, in the ICU, because it had achieved is therapeutic effect already, and the sensitive patient was slowly but steadily going bradycardic and hypotensive. Her knee-jerk surgeon wanted me to finish the "ACLS loading dose", and possibly the patient in the process.
Disclaimer: I am sure I can also be an idiot with various limitations when in certain situations. Except that I KNOW I am and what my limitations are, and don't play God, but happily let the real experts do their thing.
Dubito, ergo cogito.