Carmen Lester, CPHRM, JD, BSN, RN

Jan Kleinhesselink, RN, BHSM

Speaker Profile

• Ms. Lester is the chief clinical officer and Ms. Kleinhesselink is the chief quality officer at Lincoln (Neb.) Surgical Hospital.
• They run Yin Yang Medical Services (yinyangmedservices.com).

You solve problems every day, and you're good at it. But what about those strange occurrences and painful quandaries that come up once in a great while and really leave you scratching your head? Jan Kleinhesselink, RN, BHSM, and Carmen Lester, CPHRM, JD, BSN, RN, of Lincoln (Neb.) Surgical Hospital will talk about how to handle those, while engaging both you and your peers in their presentation, "Eyes Wide Shut: How Would You Handle These Taboo Issues in Your OR?"

• What's the common thread with issues that tend to be the most difficult for facility leaders? Every now and then situations come up that really challenge your leadership skills and your ability to think critically — the situations where there doesn't seem to be a clearly defined answer. They might involve taboo topics, strange conduct or even situations that are downright dreadful. Maybe there's a moral dilemma or an ethical dilemma involved. We find that operating room leaders and staff really struggle with dilemmas that don't happen every day but that can have serious impact on your organization.
• Why are those situations harder to address? Typically in health care we focus on the question of whether or not something is considered best practice. When issues arise, we ask ourselves, does this meet the standard of care? Or is this evidence-based practice? Those questions are usually easy to answer. But what do you do when something comes up that doesn't necessarily lend itself to those questions and that might even challenge your notions of right and wrong? How do you go about getting it resolved?
• Can you cite an example of the kind of situation you're talking about? Recently, there was a news story about a gynecologist who was accused of taking nude pictures of his patients. Suppose this happened at your organization and suppose the physician had a solid reputation in the community. How would you handle it? Now suppose the physician tells you that these pictures are going into the patient's medical record and will be deleted from the phone or camera? What's your obligation as an organization? There's often a temptation to just sweep things under the rug, but is that the right thing to do?
• Is there always one right answer in these difficult situations? No. And that's an important point. You have to look at the philosophy of the organization, your strategic model, your goals, the market in which you exist, how you relate to your physicians. There are a lot of variables and the right answer for one organization might not be the right answer for another. The important thing is that people realize that they're not the only ones dealing with these types of things.
• How can you be confident that you've reached an appropriate answer? Some situations don't necessarily have clear answers and could be managed in several ways. How you go through the process and make a determination can be dependent on the culture of the institution. But there are questions you can ask yourself as you go through it, and that's important because some situations are so unusual, you have to be able to think outside the box.

New Orleans' Traditional Cuisine is Key to its Identity

Some culinary favorites you ought to try while you're in town.

• Some culinary favorites you ought to try while you're in town.
• Taste the seafood, smoked andouille sausage, okra and heat in the gumbo, jambalaya or etouffee, all richly spiced and patiently simmered stews that are a meal in and of themselves.
• Lunchtime sandwiches pale in comparison to the po'boy, its French bread stuffed with roast beef or fried seafood and sauce, and the muffuletta, its Italian-style deli meats slathered with olive spread.
• To start the day or end the evening, fresh, hot beignets buried in powdered sugar are unlike any donuts you've ever tasted, especially alongside a cup of chicory-laced café au lait.
• If you're at liberty to explore Bourbon Street and the French Quarter, be sure to order your hurricane, the rum and fruit juice concoction, in a take-along cup.