Ridley Barron

Every 1???2 Second Counts:
A Victim's Perspective on Patient Safety

After a tragic car accident that took his wife in 2004, Mr. Barron's 17-month-old son, Josh, was killed by a medication error at the hospital that cared for him after the accident. Instead of getting angry, he chose to use the experiences as a platform for challenging individuals and institutions to put patient safety first — and to remind you that in an instant we can make fatal decisions. See Mr. Barron live a OR Excellence 2016 (orexcellence.com).

AT THE PODIUM Nancy Burden, MS, RN, CPAN, at last year's OR Excellence Conference.

When I started here at the magazine more than 13 years ago, a stranger in a strange land who didn't know an ASC from a HOPD, I was given the names of a few administrators to reach out to, folks who might be helpful in getting me up to speed. Nancy Burden, MS, RN, CPAN, was tops on the list. She's on the editorial board, they told me. Has built a few surgery centers from the ground up. Wrote a textbook that covers the special needs of the same-day surgical patient, Ambulatory Surgical Nursing. Oh, and she's one of the nice ones.

Nancy's been a friend of the magazine ever since. She's done it all for us: written articles, suggested authors, spoken at our OR Excellence Conference and helped us plan our editorial calendar. In 2005, she wrote one of the most powerful and poignant stories we've ever published, "What It's Like to Be a Bariatric Surgery Patient" (osmag.net/mWJhS8), in which she chronicled her experience undergoing gastric bypass surgery. You wouldn't know it now, but Nancy once weighed as much as 295 pounds.

Nancy hung up her scrubs for good on New Year's Eve, retiring from the BayCare Health System in Clearwater, Fla., where for several years she was the director of 3 surgery centers. About 11???2 years ago, she transitioned to a part-time role, manager of ASC education and quality. Nancy turns 70 in March and says "it seemed like the right time" to retire.

Nursing runs in the family genes. Her mother and daughter, both Peggies, were called to nursing, mom an LPN by waiver during World War II and daughter an ER nurse and budding entrepreneur in Australia.

Nancy's had a remarkable career, the kind you'd expect from someone with a 3-page CV and a 7-page resume. She's best known for her bright pink textbook, Ambulatory Surgical Nursing, first published in 1993, nearly 700 pages on the art and science of caring for patients who undergo same-day surgery.

"Mostly people think of me as the one who wrote the book," says Ms. Burden. "They called it the pink bible. People still tell me that's what got them through the CPAN [Certified Post Anesthesia Nurse] exam. That's lovely praise."

She's opened 5 freestanding surgery centers, her first in 1984 when ASCs were just starting to dot the healthcare landscape. She fondly remembers flying by the seat of her scrubs with 5 of her friends, never having worked in an operating room but having to order all the OR equipment. They'd work their normal hospital jobs till 4 p.m., get together and work on the surgery center until midnight. "Those were long hours, but what a ride. Don't be afraid to tackle something new — it makes life exciting," she says. "There's something to be said for 'fake it 'til you make it.'"

Careful, though. Nancy regrets spending most of her management career working extreme hours, sleeping on a stretcher while opening a center or two ("Why go home at this point?"). "Most of my career I did not find a proper balance between my professional versus family life," she says.

Through it all, Nancy was kind to everyone, her staff, her surgeons, her patients. "You can be an effective leader and still be kind and friendly," she says. OSM