Your entire self-worth is wrapped up in your job. You always feel on the brink of physical or mental collapse. And of course, you keep these feelings bottled up inside....

1. You're certain that the surgeon you worked with today uses his personality as birth control. 2. You really think the best photograph of yourself lately is the one on your ID badge....

In an effort to reduce the infection rate among our colon resection patients, we took some advice from our GYN/ONCO surgeons on closing protocol. They had started the practice of changing gowns,...

Diagnosing patients in need of a joint replacement is a science and implanting prosthetic joints just so is a technical art, but health care is ultimately a business. Transforming diseased joints...

Small pupils are a sizable concern for your cataract surgeons. They increase the risk of serious complications, including damage to the iris, capsular tears, vitreous loss,...

I didn't think much about the slip-resistant socks we used to throw away after patients were done with them — until, that is, I underwent surgery myself at our hospital. It struck me...

The Case for a Block Nurse Coordinator; Our regional anesthesia program ran like a well-oiled machine when we put a point person in charge.

To help reduce injuries, we decided that our nurses didn't have to do all the heavy lifting. We instituted a safe patient handling and movement program that uses...

Like most nurses working in busy hospitals, I’ve seen some pretty horrific pressure injuries in my time. Not every day, thankfully, but we all know that lying on an operating table for several hours...

It’s a letter you never want to receive, but it’s increasingly likely these days that your facility might get one. It first appears rather innocuous: A federal or private payer asks you for a sample...

It's no great secret that injecting a small amount of 1% lidocaine under the skin just before the venipuncture will make IV starts a painless breeze for both patients and nurses,...

When you turn the page, you'll see a crease across my forehead and a smile across my face. That's how you can tell I just did a robotic-assisted hernia case. The crease is from...

Of the many ways to reuse blue sterilization wrap, here's one you might not have considered: sew a couple sheets together to make a sleeping mat for homeless people...

Protect your central sterile reprocessing techs from soil and bioburden with this Decontamination Gown from Healthmark. No need for your techs to wear a plastic...

Prescription filled? Text. Package delivered? Text. School closing early? Text. Hair appointment reminder? Text. Yes, nowadays we receive a text instead of a phone call...

Who earned more in 2018, our hospital readers or our surgery center readers? Depends. If you’re going straight salary, slightly better to be in a hospital. But if you’re going salary...

The No. 1 benefit of rigid containers? That’s easy. They eliminate the punctures and tears of “torn-wrapper” syndrome, which gives you added assurance that your instruments...

Rather than handing patients a single-use plastic bag to store their belongings, we now give them a reusable blue plastic storage bucket. We have plenty of the 2-feet wide by 4-inches high buckets,...

There's no doubt a surgeon's skill and technique play a crucial role in the performance of arthroscopic surgery. But what's also undeniable is the role technology plays...

Julie Greenhalgh, RN, BSN, CNOR, began her career in the OR in 1975. After 42 years of inhaling surgical smoke, her lungs couldn’t take it anymore. She left the OR a couple years ago for the smoke-free sanctuary of office-based surgery...