In turning away patients who are above a certain BMI, is your cutoff a sliding scale that edges outward as the obesity epidemic worsens? You're hardly alone if what started...

We're all subject to Murphy's Laws of the operating room, like the not-so-funny one that matches the slowest circulator with the fastest surgeon. Here are 25 laws...

What do you do when a patient wants to climb into the back of an Uber, Lyft or taxi after surgery instead of riding home in the front seat with a responsible caregiver? And what if...

I never need an excuse to have fun with my incredible surgical team. We celebrate birthdays, babies and big-time staff achievements. We even turned our employee engagement...

It’s critical to stay up to date on the latest clinical research, but how do you find the time? Start a weekly journal club. Every Thursday for our adult reconstruction service,...

Turnover time is money. And when you're looking at your bottom line, everything comes down to one big question: How fast can you get the room ready for the next case while...

Becoming an opioid-sparing surgeon was the most liberating thing I've done in 25 years of practice. Why? Because before I started down this revolutionary path,...

How long can an endoscope hang in storage before you have to reprocess it again? There's no definitive answer, but 7 days is the consensus storage interval based on research...

Despite widespread coverage of high-profile outbreaks associated with unsafe injection practices, staff members who use needles and syringes continue to place patients...

Wrong-site blocks represent nearly one-fourth of all wrong-site procedures, yet we hear precious little about nerve block safety. Block site marks aren’t always visible,...

There are so many ways to communicate with staff — emails, phone calls, text messages, snail mail, intercoms, breakroom bulletin boards, you name it — yet none of those...

True safety in the OR isn't about what you report to CMS and the various rating agencies that will grade you for quality. Self-reported safety surveys offer a lot of wiggle room...

Ever think of all you can do to optimize your patients' experience and improve their surgical outcomes — before they even step foot into your facility? Here are 5 easy ways...

It's hard to believe that I used to perform spine surgery by moving instruments based on feel, my ability to recall specifics about the patient's anatomy and grainy pictures...

In an effort to reduce the infection rate among our colon resection patients, we took some advice from our GYN/ONCO surgeons on closing protocol. They had started the practice of changing gowns,...

1. You're certain that the surgeon you worked with today uses his personality as birth control. 2. You really think the best photograph of yourself lately is the one on your ID badge....

Diagnosing patients in need of a joint replacement is a science and implanting prosthetic joints just so is a technical art, but health care is ultimately a business. Transforming diseased joints...

Small pupils are a sizable concern for your cataract surgeons. They increase the risk of serious complications, including damage to the iris, capsular tears, vitreous loss,...

I didn't think much about the slip-resistant socks we used to throw away after patients were done with them — until, that is, I underwent surgery myself at our hospital. It struck me...

From biological indicators to sterilization containers, here’s a breakdown of the latest weapons you can add to your bug-busting arsenal as part of a bundled approach...