Will I have to change/shower alongside the surgeons I'm shadowing?

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biochemnerd123

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This might seem like a silly or trivial question but here goes:
I'm shadowing an orthopedic surgeon and later this week we're going to start in the OR. He told me to dress as I have been so far (tie, no jacket) but that I will be changing into scrubs before they start.

Does this mean we'll all be changing into scrubs together before and/or after the surgery? Do surgeons usually also shower after the surgery? I'm just wondering if it'll be awkward to strip down and change in front of these surgeons (I don't have the best body) and/or get into nearby showers. Have any of you other premeds been through this? Did you have to change/shower with them, or somehow did you not have to? If you did, how do you keep it from getting awkward?
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At my AMC, we have fully enclosed (and opaque) separate shower stalls available for physicians and medical students. As a result, no one can see anyone else.

The female docs have their own separate lounge area; and the male docs have their own separate lounge area.

When a female student is shadowing me (I'm a female doc), I always advise her to take a shower before she enters the OR area. Scrubs are provided to students in the separate shower area. Thereafter, one of the scrub staff shows the student "how" to properly prep to enter the OR: gown, cap, surgical mask, gloves, booties, whatever else might be needed. As for me, I always take a hot shower before and after being in the OR.
 
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Doctor-S said:
At my AMC, we have fully enclosed (and opaque) separate shower stalls available for physicians and medical students. As a result, no one can see anyone else.

The female docs have their own separate lounge area; and the male docs have their own separate lounge area.

When a female student is shadowing me (I'm a female doc), I always advise her to take a shower before she enters the OR area. Scrubs are provided to students in the separate shower area. Thereafter, one of the scrub staff shows the student "how" to properly prep to enter the OR: gown, cap, surgical mask, gloves, booties, whatever else might be needed. As for me, I always take a hot shower before and after being in the OR.
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Must be pretty slow if you are spending that much time showering. Also, why would you shower specifically before/after being in the OR? Are your ORs particularly dirty?
 
mimelim said:
Must be pretty slow if you are spending that much time showering. Also, why would you shower specifically before/after being in the OR? Are your ORs particularly dirty?
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The ORs are spotlessly clean.

I enjoy a hot shower before the first surgery and after the last surgery, it's my routine. My showers are short.
 
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WedgeDawg said:
Change possibly (but it'll be in a locker room so if you're really worried, you can just go to a different wing of the locker room)

Shower, no. Shower at home if you need to
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I wondered this about my med schools. On our tours we saw the locker room where we would change before anatomy and OMM (interviewed osteopathic so far) and someone asked if it was co-ed. The student giving that tour was a dental student or something and had no clue. So do we all change together? I might need to bump up my workout schedule.
 
BeMD13 said:
I wondered this about my med schools. On our tours we saw the locker room where we would change before anatomy and OMM (interviewed osteopathic so far) and someone asked if it was co-ed. The student giving that tour was a dental student or something and had no clue. So do we all change together? I might need to bump up my workout schedule.
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At my school, we had a guys locker room and a girls locker room where we would change before anatomy. I assume that's fairly standard practice. If you feel uncomfortable changing with other people, you can always change in a bathroom stall. Some people in our class chose to do that and no one cared.
 
Yes if you're same sex. If you're opposite sex, only if you choose to and that occurs after business hours anyway 😉

There will be separate locker rooms and the locker rooms should each have bathroom stalls in them so that if you're uncomfortable changing out in the open, you can use a stall.
 
I shadowed neurosurg a few years ago. We changed into the appropriate scrubs but there was no showering business.
 
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Doctor-S said:
The ORs are spotlessly clean.

I enjoy a hot shower before the first surgery and after the last surgery, it's my routine. My showers are short.
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Was agreeing with the oddness of showering before and after the OR. In 8 years in the OR, the only time I showered after a case was after a hemipelvectomy when blood soaked through two layers of booties, my sneakers and socks, my gown and scrubs.

But everyone has their routines. Whatever puts you in the right place.
 
thanks for the tips guys!
also while I'm here, a related question:
So far I've been wearing dress shirt, tie, slacks, and dress shoes to shadow at the clinic. When I go into the hospital, I was planning on wearing the same thing but instead with sneakers -- that a good idea, or should I wear dress shoes and then change into sneakers while I'm changing into scrubs?
 
Before anatomy, we had lockers in the hallway. Therefore, we changed in the hallway. Stupid public schools.
 
biochemnerd123 said:
thanks for the tips guys!
also while I'm here, a related question:
So far I've been wearing dress shirt, tie, slacks, and dress shoes to shadow at the clinic. When I go into the hospital, I was planning on wearing the same thing but instead with sneakers -- that a good idea, or should I wear dress shoes and then change into sneakers while I'm changing into scrubs?
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Change into sneakers in the locker room. Do not wear nice business style clothes with sneakers.
 
When I shadowed a cardiothoracic surgeon, we changed in the same area, as did another student who was shadowing at the same time. Not a big deal (and trust me, I don't have a great body no matter how you look at it)
 
This was a nice laugh! In all seriousness though, it just means he wants you to look professional in front of staff and patients when you come in, they will check you some scrubs, you will change in the locker room, and head back to the OR. The surgeon will probably already be in his scrubs. They will not shower after and for your own sake please do not either.
 
Wow you guys have separate locker rooms for men and women at your schools? Our locker room is co-ed...


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Our locker room is also co-ed. You learn to keep your eyes to yourself, especially when very attractive classmates are in their undies. At least I do. Maybe other folks sneak peeks.

In the OR, there will almost certainly be gender segregated locker rooms. Wear underwear. Going commando is frowned upon. Folks who work in the OR are used to changing clothes in front of one another. It isn't a big deal, and again, no one is really looking at one another. Bad form.

There may be a shower there, but you would not generally use it. The guy who rode his bike 45 minutes to work would always shower when the got there, before changing into scrubs. And sometimes I would shower if I'd had a really long, really gross shift, before going home. But if you are just shadowing, you shouldn't be wading through blood or anything that would necessitate a shower.

You can wear athletic shoes. No one is going to think anything about it. They may or may not expect you to wear shoe covers. That will depend on that particular ORs policy. I, personally, wouldn't risk wearing nice shoes into an OR, even with shoe covers. You want something that you will be comfortable standing in for many hours, that give you good support and don't hurt your feet.
 
Lannister said:
Wow you guys have separate locker rooms for men and women at your schools? Our locker room is co-ed...


Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile
Click to expand...

We didn't even have a locker room, it was just a hallway with lockers outside the anatomy lab, co-ed and in alphabetical order. Granted it was in an area of the school where really only MS1's were around, so it's not like it was a heavily trafficked area.
 
freak7 said:
Most OR's have a policy requiring that shadows not scrub in and have a dedicated nurse observe the shadow. So yes, you'd be lucky if you got to scrub in.
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Agreed. We've had a bunch of shadows, and none of them were ever allowed to scrub in. Honestly, I don't really want to have to watch them in addition to paying attention to the case and first/second assisting, and they get a better view by standing next to anesthesia and peeking over the drapes anyway.

We never had an extra nurse to watch them though. Too busy for that.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Agreed. We've had a bunch of shadows, and none of them were ever allowed to scrub in. Honestly, I don't really want to have to watch them in addition to paying attention to the case and first/second assisting, and they get a better view by standing next to anesthesia and peeking over the drapes anyway.

We never had an extra nurse to watch them though. Too busy for that.
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On record, my hospital always had a nurse available even when it was extremely busy, funny how that works 😉

The best view is staring at the monitor for laparoscopics though 🤣
 
freak7 said:
On record, my hospital always had a nurse available even when it was extremely busy, funny how that works 😉

The best view is staring at the monitor for laparoscopics though 🤣
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Ha. As cool as laparoscopic stuff is, I've just always been a bigger fan of open cases. Open chests, belly cases, etc. They're just so Halsted-esque (not that that is necessarily a good thing, considering).
 
freak7 said:
On record, my hospital always had a nurse available even when it was extremely busy, funny how that works 😉

The best view is staring at the monitor for laparoscopics though 🤣
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can't imagine having spare OR nurses. I once had to circulate in two rooms at once, because one was an epidural bleed and the other was a bad abdominal trauma, and both cases had to go at the same time, and there was no one left to call in. I've also "scrubulated" a few cases because our hospital was too cheap to have a spare surgical tech around, so if an emergency hit while our in house team was already doing b.s. elective cases all night, as charge nurse I just set up the room, called for the pt, did their pre-op check out in holding, helped anesthesia bring them back, scrubbed in, assisted with the case, made a few notes on my back table, and then did all my charting after helping take the patient to PACU. Usually all done before the call folks could show up. (On paper, they had to be there within 30 minutes of when they were called. In practice? It wasn't enforced, so folks would show up an hour after you needed them.)

The OR is one department that *should* always have personnel to spare. Being "cost effective" by not wanting to waste a few dollars per hour on "extra" staff is asking for a disaster to happen. And expensive. If an OR is delayed for even 1 minute by not having the staff to run it, the revenue lost in that minute is likely more than the nurse and tech would have been paid for an hour. When delays look more like an hour or more per day entirely due to insufficient staff availability, the financial losses of trying to run with only the bare minimum staffs really start to add up... to say nothing of the impact on patients, surgeons, anesthesiologists and everyone else who all have to wait because the hospital doesn't want to "waste money" on a couple more of the least expensive members of the team.

I've veered way off topic, but it is the reason that I have zero interest in a surgical specialty. I've butted heads with hospital administrators over this matter as many times as I ever want to do.
 
freak7 said:
Most OR's have a policy requiring that shadows not scrub in and have a dedicated nurse observe the shadow. So yes, you'd be lucky if you got to scrub in.
Click to expand...

Given the context of showering pre/post surgery, the fact that "scrub in" followed by a winking face should have been enough to understand that my post was a joke that was referencing taking a shower with a surgeon and lathering them up. My apologies if it wasn't clear enough.
 
idontwatchgreysanatomy said:
Given the context of showering pre/post surgery, the fact that "scrub in" followed by a winking face should have been enough to understand that my post was a joke that was referencing taking a shower with a surgeon and lathering them up. My apologies if it wasn't clear enough.
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Oh, dang it my bad. I thought that was a "they'll let you do it but keep it on the DL" winky.
 
Promethean said:
Yeah, I can't imagine having spare OR nurses. I once had to circulate in two rooms at once, because one was an epidural bleed and the other was a bad abdominal trauma, and both cases had to go at the same time, and there was no one left to call in. I've also "scrubulated" a few cases because our hospital was too cheap to have a spare surgical tech around, so if an emergency hit while our in house team was already doing b.s. elective cases all night, as charge nurse I just set up the room, called for the pt, did their pre-op check out in holding, helped anesthesia bring them back, scrubbed in, assisted with the case, made a few notes on my back table, and then did all my charting after helping take the patient to PACU. Usually all done before the call folks could show up. (On paper, they had to be there within 30 minutes of when they were called. In practice? It wasn't enforced, so folks would show up an hour after you needed them.)

The OR is one department that *should* always have personnel to spare. Being "cost effective" by not wanting to waste a few dollars per hour on "extra" staff is asking for a disaster to happen. And expensive. If an OR is delayed for even 1 minute by not having the staff to run it, the revenue lost in that minute is likely more than the nurse and tech would have been paid for an hour. When delays look more like an hour or more per day entirely due to insufficient staff availability, the financial losses of trying to run with only the bare minimum staffs really start to add up... to say nothing of the impact on patients, surgeons, anesthesiologists and everyone else who all have to wait because the hospital doesn't want to "waste money" on a couple more of the least expensive members of the team.

I've veered way off topic, but it is the reason that I have zero interest in a surgical specialty. I've butted heads with hospital administrators over this matter as many times as I ever want to do.
Click to expand...

What the hell kind of crap is that? The longest it ever took me to get to the OR was 20 mins. The patient was on the table and the circulator was scrubbed in getting the back table set up. When I walked into the room she just about hugged me and threw me a gown.

I've never seen a room run without a circulator, but a lot of our surgeons were self sufficient enough to be able to grab their own **** if necessary. More than once I was first assisting and had both hands busy, so I had all the "essentials" on the mayo for him to grab as we needed them.

From the surgeon's perspective, I'd rather have no scrub for a while than no circulator. As long as I have another pair of hands there, it's manageable. If I need another set, a certain suture/tie, a stapler, etc, I'm not getting **** without a circulator.
 
Ismet said:
We didn't even have a locker room, it was just a hallway with lockers outside the anatomy lab, co-ed and in alphabetical order. Granted it was in an area of the school where really only MS1's were around, so it's not like it was a heavily trafficked area.
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Ha, we dreamed of a hallway with lockers. We had to change in the classroom, given only a dirty sheet leftover from patients' beds for privacy.
 
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