Ever had one of those days when nothing goes right? Or rather, to be exact, when everything goes wrong? You hold your breath just to get out of there before a Sentinel Event happens. (I hear the paperwork after one of those is pretty gruesome.) You ask yourself, "Why me? What did I do to deserve this?" When you get home you call your friend Haley and, interestingly enough, she was fighting fires at her facility that day, too.

Mythology behind mishaps?
The aviation industry, which everyone says we should be more like, used to attribute aircraft problems to "gremlins," but I have another idea. Ancient cultures praised and blamed a list of gods and goddesses for what occurred in life. Who's to say that gods aren't ruling us in surgery?

One of the major ones has to be the God of Equipment, who has spawned many children, including the fickle demigod Armboards. Sometimes those little demons will attach to the bed effortlessly, but other times they won't latch on no matter which way you turn them, and will bite your finger if it gets in the way.

Two other equipment demigods, Light Cord and Camera, tend to ensnare us hapless users in a rundown. You're never sure which one to blame for visualization failures. You call for another sterile set and incur the wrath of your reprocessors. If your process of elimination rules out both items, that only leaves operator error, and you know that a surgeon's Herculean personality never accepts blame.

The God of Sterility can be quite the prankster. His little shenanigans have been known to incite riots and upheavals in the Kingdom of Central Sterile, and much consternation among those setting up cases in the OR. There's nothing like opening several pans because the sterimeters are missing from them. Sterility likes to test his subjects by piercing small holes in the blue wrap, but one of his favorite activities is to shed a single hair on the draped Mayo stand, only to be discovered after you've already set it up with instruments.

The wise surgical staffer doesn't dare disrespect the God of Time, a stern taskmaster always thundering "Hurry up." He loves to glorify his name by preceding it with the word "turnover." I don't know of a single person who isn't under Time's thrall, even as he messes with the clocks he has created to interfere with our workflow.

Unlike Time, the God of Quiet hates to hear his name spoken, and will punish those who speak it. Merely whispering the "Q word" — as in, "Boy, today sure has been …" — will wreak havoc and rain emergency gallbladder and fracture cases upon you without end. I've been among tribes that have been known to flog people for speaking the word aloud.

Worthy sacrifice
When you think about it, it's clear that there are many deities out there, sitting back eating bonbons and peeled grapes while watching us mere mortals struggle to keep the world of surgery turning on its axis. The age-old question is, what can we do to minimize the tampering of the gods on our terrestrial sphere? Well, if we knew that, there'd be a lot fewer workplace complaints. We'd have found paradise on earth, and would be legends in our own time. Which is another way of saying, good luck with that. The only suggestion I can offer is, maybe someone could sacrifice a bag of popcorn in the break-room microwave and burn some offerings to the gods of surgery.