Editor’s Page: Unsettling Images

You pull into a spacious parking lot, easily find a spot and make the short walk to the brand new, state-of-the-art surgery center where you’ve scheduled your first preoperative appointment for what everybody assures you will be a life-changing surgery.

On the short jaunt up toward the entrance, you marvel at the sleek, modern design of the newly constructed building, feeling in your gut that you’ve made the right call.

Then, as you’re about to walk through the second set of doors, you stop in your tracks, stunned by what you’re seeing. An armed police officer stands beside the metal detector you must walk through before even setting foot in the facility.

It’s an unsettling image, isn’t it?

It flies in the face of everything that an outpatient facility is supposed to represent — a warm and welcoming environment that makes patients feel calm, comfortable and, most of all, safe. As absurd as the image may seem, it’s certainly not beyond the realm of possibility in today’s climate — one in which two deadly shootings took place at outpatient facilities in a 13-month period.

Those two incidents rocked the surgery center community to its core, causing many leaders to rethink the security strategies they currently have in place and consider measures that would have been unthinkable not too long ago. But as Andy Poole rightly points out in this month’s cover story, outpatient facilities are uniquely vulnerable to tragedies like the one that claimed the life of Dr. Ben Mauck, the beloved Campbell Clinic surgeon who was killed by a patient back in July.

Dr. Mauck is the centerpiece of our cover story, and our editorial team focused on some of the details that have come out since his death was first reported. Then, we zoomed out and looked at how Dr. Mauck’s murder fits into the bigger picture. Tragedies like the shooting at the Campbell Clinic this year and the one at St. Francis previous year are national news stories because of the end result: the senseless loss of life. But these incidents also seem to be part of a larger trend, the alarming surge in violence against healthcare workers of all stripes — from surgeons to techs.

Forty percent of nurses said they’ve noticed an increase in violence against healthcare workers. The key word there is “increase.” I’m willing to bet if you asked any nurse at random whether they’ve ever witnessed or been a victim of violence caused by a patient or family member while on the job, they’d answer in the affirmative.

My wife, a burn nurse, tells me, “Every nurse has had to deal with a violent patient.” She then went into detail about her own experiences.

This needs to change.

If we can’t guarantee the safety of our caretakers, then how can we in good conscience call ourselves a civilized society?

As unsettling as the image of a metal detector in a surgery center lobby may be, it pales in comparison to one of a facility roped off in yellow caution tape.

Facility leaders may not have any answers for the steady rise in violence against healthcare workers that we’re seeing, but they owe it to everyone on their staff to never let their guards down and remain open to any ideas that will allow them to guarantee that their caregivers are always safe. OSM