Our hand hygiene compliance had gone to the dogs when the idea struck me to unleash my sweet English Bulldog, Lilly, on the problem. I took down our standard please...

The most common surgical malpractice claim is operative negligence, which arises when a plaintiff alleges that a surgeon deviated from the standard of care during...

The patient was saying all the right things, but something about the way she was acting seemed off. Turn on your observers, thought the receptionist. It's the motto...

Soon after I started my career in the OR 38 (!) years ago, the first Universal Law of OR Nursing grabbed me by my scrub jacket and shook me into a higher state of...

It takes about 24 hours for enough epithelial cells to proliferate across surgical wounds to protect the area from infection. You can tell patients to keep wounds...

I've conducted more than 1,000 fire drills at surgery centers. OR staff make the same 4 mistakes when trying to extinguish a simulated fire. These simple errors...

The impact inhalational anesthetics have on the environment is probably greater than you realize. Consider these planet-polluting realities:...

I am the founder of Littlethanks (littlethanks.ca), a line of scrub-sized thank-you cards for nurses to let their fellow nurses know how much they appreciate and respect...

When does it make the most sense to buy prefilled syringes? Some say if you administer a drug 10 times or more a day, you’ll save considerable time not having to draw it up,...

This year's Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) meeting in Baltimore provided a powerful snapshot of how far our discipline...

A few months ago, my staff came to me with a rather odd request. They wanted to convert an empty room off of the surgery area into a relaxation room, a mini-retreat...

Do your surgeons and staff place their rings on a necklace or tie them to their scrub pants during a case? Now they can secure their rings to their bra straps with the Joleo...

If you're like most surgery center administrators, you started out as a hospital OR circulator, an apprenticeship that didn't come close to preparing you for all the hats...

Kids like to drive electric cars to the OR. Older patients prefer the quiet ride of a motorized stretcher chair that transforms from seat to transport stretcher to OR...

After the grind of the interview process, it's exciting when you find a nurse who will be a great addition to your team. You're hoping the person will blend well with...

It's human nature to want to apologize. When we cut someone off in traffic, when we forget to follow up on an email, when we say something that we shouldn't have,...

We set out to walk the massive exhibit floor of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) conference, but we never got very far before a cool, new product...

You make every effort to ensure your patients’ comfort for the few hours that they pass through your facility, but what about your surgeons and staff? Like gladiators,...

Surgeons sometimes obsess over screen size, so fixated on a monitor's diagonal length that they overlook the 3 P's: positioning, proximity and pixels. Yes, size is...

Every year, physicians perform millions of off-label epidural steroid injections (ESI) to treat neck and back pain — despite the risk of rare but serious and sometimes fatal...