Scrub Techs & OR Stories.

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I can't really add anything that hasn't been already said other than to say that with the exception of one nasty encounter with a particular scrub nurse whom I go to great lengths to avoid, I have found all the scrub nurses I've worked with to be very helpful and kind to us students. They'll gladly (with the exception of the one twit who nobody likes anyway) assist us in the surgery so we don't look like complete *****s.
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Blade28 said:
Some would say he's still alive and still churning out records!
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I wish. That way I might get to listen to real music instead of T-pain and Flo-Rida and all that ****. I hate that ****. And Akon sucks too. I don't know why hip-hop stations insist on playing bullcrap--the only good music on the radio lately is Lil Wayne, the new Three Six, the new Keak da Sneak, and maybe some Plies plus a few other ones.

And I bet I could think of questions that Tired could care even less about. For example: "will either Vick brother ever make another NFL roster?" and "When will 98 Degrees do a reunion tour?"
 
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Hey, remember when this thread was about trashing OR staff, and not crappy, One hit wonder, bubble gum "hip-hop" ( and I use hip hop very loosely).
 
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Drawing Dead said:
Hey, remember when this thread was about trashing OR staff, and not crappy, One hit wonder, bubble gum "hip-hop" ( and I use hip hop very loosely).
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Are you agreeing with me, or trashing Wayne?
 
Neither, I was trying to get this thread back on track.
 
Winged Scapula said:
"Apple Bottom jeans, boots with the fur, the whole clubs lookin' at her..."

Aww...how can you not like that?
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I absolutely hate that song. I turn the radio off when it comes on. Flo-Rida is awful, and that kind of **** is an embarrassment to real rap. "Them baggy sweatpants and them Reeboks with the straps"--what the hell is that? That's ******ed! I hate Flo-Rida, and T-Pain too.
 
DrDre311 said:
And I bet I could think of questions that Tired could care even less about. For example: "will either Vick brother ever make another NFL roster?" and "When will 98 Degrees do a reunion tour?"
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How about...

Will the kick pleat make a return in Milan this fall?

What will Angelina Jolie name her twins? (Her twin babies, I mean)
 
DrDre311 said:
I absolutely hate that song. I turn the radio off when it comes on. Flo-Rida is awful, and that kind of **** is an embarrassment to real rap. "Them baggy sweatpants and them Reeboks with the straps"--what the hell is that? That's ******ed! I hate Flo-Rida, and T-Pain too.
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Such a hata...:p

Remind me to crank up the Flo-Rida when I do some cases next week.
 
Tired said:
Actually quite important to my gambling addic . . . I mean hobby.



You don't think I care about 10,000 screaming teenage girls?
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Now you're just being recalcitrant. When has Marcus Vick being involved in any NFL game ever pushed the Vegas line his team's way? And I knew you were a closet Nick Lachey fan.
 
Tired said:
We complain about it because it is damaging and demeaning. We downplay it because we are told to downplay it.

Back in the day, attendings abused residents and students, and that sucked, but at least it was within the field and could be written off as part of the "hazing" ritual. Now everyone in the hospital takes shots at residents and students, and our attendings tell us to "let it go" and "work with the team" and "don't make waves". It's total ****.

Last week I watched a phlebotomist yell at a cardiology fellow for trying to take the echo machine into a patient's room. "I have a stat order for a blood draw! Get out of my way until I'm finished!" He just took it.

I read allnurses, and listen to folks in the hospital. A resident looks at a nurse funny, and they are labeled a "giant a$$hole" for all time. But a scrub tech hits a student and they become some kind of folk hero, standing up to "the man". Of course, "the man" is some kid who works triple the hours of the scrub tech and takes home 2/3 their salary. And what does our staff say about this? Let it go, don't make waves. Thanks for protecting your juniors, tool.

These experiences don't just go away. They stick with you. I remember every indignity, every slap, every public humiliation. I will still remember them when I am an attending.
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I agree with that much.

As a side note, I find that the least intelligent people are the ones who are most rigid about completely arbitrary rules...i.e. color of scrubs.
 
Tired said:
#1 - Because the day I hear, ". . . and starting at QB . . . MARCUS VICK!!!!" is the day I start dropping dimes on the opposing team.

#2 - Nick nailed that Simpson girl, which immediately makes him cooler than both of us.
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#1--Little Vick couldn't hack it at QB even for the Dolphin's practice squad; that's why they tried to make him a WR and still cut him.

#2--No argument here. He wins.
 
Anyway, I've got a slightly different background

So, a few years ago our surgery clerkship director retired from the OR to focus entirely on education. In doing so, he now had no reason to stay in the good graces of the OR ancillary staff. And seeing how the majority of the complaints about the rotation were about nurses and scrub techs (our residents and attendings are actually quite popular and benign), he decided he was going to take them on.

Basically, for any complaint he personally went to the supervisors and discussed it with them. The amount of blatant "anti-med student behavior" dropped impressively. However, instead of learning their lesson, the bad scrub techs still try to "get back" in minor ways just to annoy you.

It's not bad when the worst you're subjected to is the classic "half-assed help you with your gloves then lecture you about putting them on right" and the like, but it's really sad that they can't let go of this behavior. When they go to scrub tech school, is there a lecture series about "Putting med students in their place" or something?
 
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AlternateSome1 said:
She looks like a golden retriever, but with a dumber, glazed look in her eyes. I don't think that improves his coolness.
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jessica-simpson.jpg

I have to disagree. Score: Lachey one, surgery residents one SDN zero.
 
Many options: Lights, paper bag, reverse!

Get creative
 
Apollyon said:
Dude, you can appreciate this. Way back in 2001, when I was a third year, I was rotating on surgery. A buddy of mine was doing 2 weeks of ortho, and was in the OR with some case that had a lot of dust or whatever and they're wearing face shields. The attending took the mallet out of the resident's hand and hit the resident on the mask with it - right over his forehead.
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Wow. You have to send signals out that you will let yourself be treated like this. Its just like how some girls ALWAYS find the abusive guy. I don't care who the attending is, he's another guy and as another guy, he realizes that if he crosses a line with someone that is not a complete ***** there are consequences. Attendings may correct me, and sometimes harshly, but this would never happen to me. And if it did, it would only happen once.
 
AlternateSome1 said:
She looks like a golden retriever, but with a dumber, glazed look in her eyes. I don't think that improves his coolness.
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Dude, are you kidding me? If Golden Retrievers looked like that, I would be hanging out in the pound daily.

Although, I do have to say that I'm not impressed by that either. He didn't just hit that, he wifed her up. That means he was like "Hey, I don't want to mess around with this harem of girls beating down my door anymore. Instead, I'm gonna lock this brain surgeon up so I can have stimulating conversations such as why Buffalos have such little wings, and how do chickens live in the sea."

What was wrong with hit it and quit it Nick?
 
My favorite OR stories:

1) First day of ortho on my MS3 rotation, I was scheduled to scrub on a hemiarthroplasty so the junior attending told me to go join his senior partner with the case that was about to begin. I walk into the room. The patient is on the table, still without anesthesia, and the ortho doc is just getting ready to prep. Still unscrubbed. No sooner than I say, "hi, my name is ..." he grabs me by my scrubs with two clenched fists and throws me against the wall. "You're too close to the sterile field! STAND OVER THERE." Wildly tachycardic, I stood frozen. I thought, what should I do? Leave? Stay? I'm a newly minted MS3, is this normal? Is it my fault? What defines the sterile field anyway, he was closer to it than I ever was. Oh great, now there's betadine on my scrubs too. The scrub nurse looks over at me and whispers "relax, just stand there." At least thats what her eyes told me. 5 minutes later, felt like 20 minutes, he walks up to me and says with a quiet voice "are you okay? did I hurt you?" Then asked for me to scrub in, and let me do most of the case. Taught me the incision, let me drill, and let me close up. "Now when you ask someone to cut your suture, always tell them they cut it too short or too long." I didn't get it at the time, but it made sense eventually. I couldn't wait to tell my classmates what happened. But before I could say anything, they had that "oh, you too?" look... I guess they didn't want to spoil the surprise. Of course, neither would I, by not telling the next person who had ortho.

2) Speaking of OR violence, I'll have to blur the details on this one. A surgeon asked for a certain piece of equipment to be brought urgently during a case. It took like 15 minutes, and the wrong item was brought. So he rips off his gown, throws a bunch of instruments on the floor (the ones on the operative field), throws the wrong piece of equipment out of the room. Then looks at the anesthesiologist and says, "why dont you go bring me the f'ing correct one." Anesthesia replied, "why dont you go F yourself" and left the room. Another anesthesiologist came in to cover, meanwhile the correct equipment was finally brought in and the case was finished. Surgeon took time to then proudly show off the good result to everyone in the room as if nothing happened.

3) Our senior OBGYN routinely smacks students, residents, and junior attendings hands.

4) Watching, unscrubbed, an OBGYN case. Intern was having some trouble and kept asking for an array of different instruments. After the case, attending goes, ugh, interns... the less knowledge they have, the more instruments they ask for.
 
Before I went to med school I worked in the OR. I remember these two insanely fat nurses that worked nights, mostly so they didn't have to work at all. I'm talking so fat, the sterile fields were basically up against the wall to allow their girth to navigate the scene. Even the XXL scrubs were tight around their waist.

I avoided them as much as possible, but I remember this one morning at the end of a weekend night shift when they were having a "party" in the lounge. You know, the kind where everyone brings a dish and they all pig out. One of them had brought a f*ing waffle iron and some pancake batter. I mean, a fresh waffle sounds good in the morning, but to bring an appliance to work just to cook a plaque-inducing waffle when I just want to go home and sleep seemed a little over the top.
 
Tired said:
I wonder if we're at the same place.

My first day as an Ortho intern, I'm helping position a 400lbs woman for a total hip, and apparently I wasn't going fast enough, because the attending says: "Goddamn it Tired, use your f***ing muscles and put that patient on her side. I swear to God, if you act like a f***ing p***y on this rotation I'm going to beat the s*** out of you."
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lol, i love that guy. if only my colleagues would talk this way
 
if my golden retriever looked like that, I'm afraid i'd be doing jail time
 
Insert some joke about doggystyle here.
 
seriously. grandma pants + camel toe. she looks as bad in this pic as she possibly could.
 
Tired said:
Everyone in my program talks that way. Even the women.

The problem comes in when people forget where to draw the line.
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sigh...if only i were in a program where this was actually a problem. instead i deal with spineless nerds.
 
Tired said:
Everyone in my program talks that way. Even the women.

The problem comes in when people forget where to draw the line.
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I am always stunned a little when the ladies drop "F" bombs or other tasteful words, especially when it is barely warranted. The other side of me is impressed somewhat.

Agree that line gets blurred sometimes especially when a group of tired, beat down residents get going.
 
Bertelman said:
I mean, a fresh waffle sounds good in the morning, but to bring an appliance to work just to cook a plaque-inducing waffle when I just want to go home and sleep seemed a little over the top.
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And it's just THAT kind of defeatist attitude that's gonna keep you from achieving your dreams of morbid obesity! It takes dedication to get that fat.
 
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