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Dr. Vu's journal

Fractured bones

11/16/2019

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This week, I have to apologize to patients who were rescheduled due to my schedule.  My youngest broke his arm in gymnastics and we were at the ER, then the doctor's office, and finally the surgery center...all 3 days in a row.  Surprisingly, the ER was so busy on a Wednesday night.  The doctor's appointment the following morning was also busy.  Then the surgery center was horrific.  They did not have clean instruments for my child's surgery.  The charge nurse tells me there will be at least an hour delay.  That was followed by the surgeon coming by to say..."a longer delay" because he has other surgeries that he has to do as well that day and took off.  He was upset.
The facility manager, Steve, tells me they're humans so they make mistakes.  But he will "take it for the team" as I'm sitting there questioning how a surgical center was not prepared for a surgical procedure that was set a day before.  
Steve: I'm not directly involved but I will let you take it out on me.
Me: You're the manager, right?  You manage the facility?
Steve: Yes, but the charge nurse was supposed to take care of these things.  I'm trying to protect your child.  This is implant surgery.  We need the instruments to be sterilized.  Dr. Kanel doesn't use this facility regularly so we need the instruments to be brought in.
Me: You don't think I want to protect my child?  I know how implants work.  
He continues to talk down to me like I don't know what implants are.  Only after I told him I was a dentist, placing implants in the jaws, did he start to tone down his aggressiveness.
I don't understand people.  Why do some think they know more just by assumption?  I saw the guy delivering my son's instruments to his surgery.  Does that even look  safe to you as he walked across the parking lot and into the surgery room?  The room, in theory, was supposed to be "sterile", instruments coming from the parking lot and through a room filled with people kinda take that sterilized factor away.  Ugh!  My point with Steve was:  I understand mistakes are made BUT your facility made the mistake.  First, the anesthesiologist was late.  He ordered the medical assistant over the phone to administer the oral sedation dosage.  Then the nurse wasn't informed about the  instruments so she had to push my son back after she started to take him to the OR.  The surgeon came in upset and walked right back out after 2 minutes with us.   The instruments arrived through the parking lot and across a reception area.  There were so many places to correct on this day.  Don't tell me you're protecting my child when I'm trying to make sure everyone knows what they're doing on him because of all the things I saw in 3 hours of being there.  It is disheartening and the surgery has not even started.  
In the end, the surgery was done and his bones have rods in them.  For that, I am grateful to the surgeon who made it happen.
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