Almost every day in surgery, something or someone makes us shake our head, roll our eyes or bite our tongue — sometimes all at once. A person who's never worn scrubs to work wouldn't get it. But for you and me, it's just another day at the office.

1'Fire balls of my Eucharist.' Patients don't always understand what their surgeon told them, but somehow we know what they mean when they tell us their diagnosis. They had the worst case of something ever known to mankind ("I had a high-as-hell hernia."). Or they were on the brink of death ("I almost died of micro orgasms in my blood."). Or they were about to ignite ("My doctors said I had fireballs of my Eucharist."). We can't make this stuff up. Yes, patients will tell you almost anything, except when they last ate or drank and the name of the last illegal drug they took and when they last took it.

2Lose the undies. I try over and over to get pre-op to stop sending patients to surgery with their underwear on. If the procedure is going to be below the waist, the undies need to be off. Even if the patient is in the midst of shedding the uterine lining, we don't care. Linens wash and they are going to be changed several times. The patient will get a peri pad or ABD dressing sustained with mesh briefs. When the patient wakes up, she's not going to have a clue anyway.

3Stay on your feet. I try to stand while charting. If the scrub sees you sitting down, she'll invariably ask you to get her something, like another pair of size 7 gloves when there are already 4 pairs of size 7 gloves on the field and only 2 people scrubbed who wear a size 7. Grrrrrr!!!! Scrubs can make life tough for circulators. Get on their bad side and they'll run you all over Hell's half acre for items not on the preference sheet. Just as you finally get back with the item, they love to say "never mind." This is when I start plotting how to find them in the parking lot after work.

4Paperless, shmaperless. I can't see how electronic charting has improved anything. There's still a lot of paperwork. It's not good enough to keyboard all the information in a computer. You still have to do logs, request sheets, pathology requests, place labels everywhere and fill out an SBAR sheet. I think of all the time it would save to just check off boxes on forms and send the case off on its merry way.

5Mind your business. Speaking of electronic charting, I get annoyed with people coming over to my C.O.W. in the middle of a case, asking me to click on the surgery tracking tab so they can look at the schedule to see where all the other people are and what they're doing or what they'll be doing next. Who cares, busybody? Do this case, then worry about the next one. I'm charting in between going on the wild goose chases for supplies you keep sending me on. Oh, and I'm not going to help you put this feces load of stuff you had me go get away either.

Can you relate?

Only we find these slices of OR life amusing or annoying. Why? Because we can all relate to them. We've all had similar experiences. We get it. And we get each other. That's what bonds us to each other, across every hospital and surgery center, from sea to shining sea. OSM