When our chief medical officer joined our daily safety huddle one morning, I saw a golden opportunity to get our smoke-free OR program off the ground. I'd been trying...

Patients often sit nervously in the reception area as they wait to hear their name loudly called when it's time to get prepped for surgery. To take some of the stress out of...

You might use covert monitoring methods and punitive punishments to improve your staff's compliance with hand hygiene protocols, but I believe in overt observations...

"The OR is on fire!" Did we get your attention? Approximately 500 surgical fires occur every year in the U.S.,...

For the longest time, we believed safer equipment and safety procedures were the way to prevent sharps injuries. But after years of increased focus on sharps safety, this hasn't been...

Marking trash bags with an OR's room number is a simple way to shorten the search for misplaced instruments. No matter how many instrument counts take place...

On a winter’s evening in 2017, Chris Fuller, MD, was about to cut into the most vibrant green bell pepper he had ever seen. “It was splayed before me, in brilliant 4K high-def...

There's no question major changes have been made in the OR as a result of COVID-19. Of course, changes come with a lot of complaints. We perioperative nurses would...

If you think residents of nursing homes are the only people who wind up with agonizing pressure injuries because they've been laying in the same position for weeks...

You never know how your staff will respond to a rare but potentially deadly malignant hyperthermia (MH) event until it actually occurs. When we found ourselves facing...

Years ago, Valerie Y. Marsh, BSN, MSN, DNP, CNOR, was sure a sponge had been left inside a patient. "The surgeon swore it wasn't in there, and he wasn't going to reopen...

Do you ever notice how your fresh stock of facility-logoed pens always seem to disappear? If you don't want to lecture staff about "stealing" your dwindling supplies,...

Be careful, the floor's wet and slippery. Colbie Fredette, RN, absentmindedly repeats that phrase without looking up whenever someone walks into the OR during fluid-heavy...

You need to check out Netflix’s Lenox Hill, a docuseries named after the Manhattan hospital where it takes place. It’s a brutally honest, gut-wrenching, joyous look at...

The risks and dangers of complex spine procedures are significant, so surgeons must work with specially designed tables that give them the access, visibility, versatility,...

I was working as a brand-new circulator when the surgeon on the case started making snide comments about one of the OR nurses — a sarcastic jab here, a dig there. Soon...

Bodily fluid overflow is common during notoriously messy joint procedures. Your staff can stem the tide by attempting to sop it up, but closed mobile collection units are...

Shoulder replacements were already moving strongly in the direction of outpatient facilities before the pandemic hit. Within the outpatient world, I've seen a steady move...

The value of crisp visualization during arthroscopy couldn't be clearer. If surgeons can't optimally observe the joints they're diagnosing and treating, the best possible outcomes ...

How did you become linked with ice hockey? I was a team physician for the University of Minnesota hockey team, which won two...