No food or drink past midnight is slowly giving way to carbo-loading up to 2 hours before surgery. Fasting past midnight has been an unwritten Ordinance of the OR...

In the absence of antibiotic alternatives, physicians in the early 1900s had no choice but to treat every infection with penicillin. Chronic pain went through a similar...

A large hospital had so many case carts full of trays backed up during the day they struggled to turn around instrument sets in less than 24 hours. Within 6 months,...

On the 1st day of Christmas my OR gave to me … PTSD from the Devil incarnate of a scrub tech I had to work with every day. I would call her a witch or a female dog...

Knee replacement specialists can measure twice and cut once with saws and drills and feel pretty confident that the implants they place will align perfectly with the femur...

Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci robot, which sells for $1.5 to $2 million and costs about $300,000 a year to maintain, continues to dominate abdominal robotic surgery....

Our surgery center doesn’t have a cafeteria, so family members who were waiting for their loved ones in surgery used to leave if they wanted a quick bite to eat. When surgeons...

One of our staff members noticed that we're always touching our ID badges, and that pre- and post-op staff touch their stethoscopes, and even the time clock to punch...

Well, that was a blast. A record number of top surgical leaders from across the country gathered in the Big Easy for 3 days packed with presentations by national experts,...

Kids driving themselves to the OR in motorized cars isn’t new, but creating a road for them to follow and letting them dress up as superheroes on the way...

Surgery can be scary for anyone, but especially so for the littlest of patients. That’s why we provide kids with crayons and surgery-specific coloring books....

Our facility’s satisfaction surveys revealed low scores and negative comments in reference to the quality of our communication with patients and their family...

The Oregon Surgical Institute (OSI) is on pace to complete its 500th outpatient joint replacement of the year next month. Patients are ready to head home 6 hours after...

Last month at OR Excellence in New Orleans, attendees packed the conference’s main presentation hall for an open forum discussion about ways to improve...

Hope for the Future; Diversity challenges are real, but we can overcome them.

Endophthalmitis, an infection involving the entire eye, is a rare complication of invasive procedures such as cataract surgery and intravitreal injections. Post-cataract...

With their hard-to-access cannulas and complex components, flexible endoscopes are not only difficult to clean, but also difficult to keep dry in storage. The biggest difference...

9 Tips for Negotiating Language Barriers; For moral, legal and financial reasons, we must do better. Here's advice on how.

Next Steps; If you're committed to becoming more diverse and inclusive, here are a few places to get help.

The surgical nurse had a substance use disorder, went to rehab for treatment and was in long-term recovery. All seemed well, but she was surrounded by temptation...