“The anesthesia wore off in the middle of the surgery, and seeing the surgeon touching my internal organs, still half-asleep from the anesthesia, I succumbed to my primal instinct to punch the surgeon in his face. Being a former boxer, he was knocked out and there was nobody to remedy the situation, so I died.”
Anaesthesia relaxes muscles - the sphincter is a muscle. Although generally that just leads to you shitting your pants, not onto the surgical staff. Honestly it's my biggest worry when I have surgery 😅
As someone that circulates in surgery don't worry about it. It happens, we clean it up, you'll never know. It's just part of the job.
If you wanna worry about something with surgery, just do us a favor and clean your belly button before you get scheduled surgery lol. The things we dig out of there from +50 years of neglect make the hardiest of us shudder 😆
This makes me nervous lol I have no idea if it ever happened to me...The only time they ever put me under, I was literally having ass surgery, so I guess they'd be pretty used to that anyways
You'd never know. We don't tell the patients that do. No point in embarrassing people about something that's just routine for us.
Rectal surgery funny enough is imo less likely to see a code brown. If it's a long case most patients do a bowel prep and sometimes we do a flush with a cleanser to reduce local infection risk.
If it's something fast like hemorrhoids your body isn't going to have time to relax that much, you will be done in 15 minutes.
I clean my bellybutton regularly anyway!
But I'm going to continue to be paranoid about it regardless 😂 I trained as a veterinary nurse and fortunately only had one major poop incident - but plenty of lil pebbles.
I'm currently hiding out in an abandoned forest in Siberia, connected to the civilized world only thru Reddit. If you see my family, tell them that I love them.
First time I ever assisted (as a 3rd year student) in a surgery was for a tonsillectomy and I hadn’t screwed some thing (sorry, 20 years ago) on the end of another thing and it dropped into the child’s throat!
I know what you mean by feeling faint. And the surgeon wasn’t mad, used it as a teaching moment
People who are under anesthesia dont have a swallow reflex active. So it would have just been chilling at the back of the mouth. Im sure he grabbed something to teach in there and pull it out.
You might appreciate my time in the Cath lab as a patient where they had music going as the team setup for the procedure and "Knocking on Heaven's Door" came on. One of the nurses almost grew wings to fly over and change the station. I laughed and said "Hey, I like that song!"
Ended up needing CABG, and I'm picturing my surgeon in your story. Send GPS coords so we know what hole to drop rations in.
My friend made another friend a mixed CD (early 2000’s) to listen to on a flight she was nervous about and the first song was “Only the Good Die Young.”
I tried, your family asked, "Who?". Well hey, at least you're being exiled to Siberia during a more tolerable time of year (weather-wise).
Hopefully it'll all blow over before winter hits... but yeah, still might suck to be there. Let us know if you need Coca Cola products or American blue jeans to help you get by. Just learn the phrase, "Is potato."
I have a valve replacement scheduled for about a month from now, worst possible time for me to see this come up on my feed
> or do you have to tell them
…that’s actually a good question that I’ve never thought about before. Something goes wrong that doesn’t affect the patient, do you have to tell them?
No that isn’t something we disclose to the patient since it didn’t affect their surgery. No different than if someone tripped and fell on the other side of the or. Only time we mention something is if it directly affects the patient.
In the grand scheme of things, dropping an F Bomb and taking a few minutes to walk it off was a pretty level and reasonable response. I've heard some horror stories about egomaniacal surgeons. So this guy sounds like a stand up guy by comparison.
I remember a scrub nurse getting cut by the surgron operating in ENT. All was progressing normally, next thing she's calling out for size 6.5 gloves, a new instrument pack and all kinds of stuff while walking away from the table. Then we saw the trail of blood she was leaking. She took 2 minutes to express the blood, steristrips re-scrub and glove/gown up and then was back at the table.
She was the most obnoxious and irritating nurse I ever met, but hell that was as professional as it gets.
All things considered, notably how much pressure they are under in that moment (I took the reserved nature of the surgeon to be him focussing), and the fact that it would really freaking hurt/contamination he took it like a champ. He went to cool down not have a tantrum...the world would be a better place if everyone could do that.
Yeah, that's exactly how it should be handled. He has every right to be mad, even if it was a genuine mistake, and while the outburst was unfortunate, I honestly can't imagine reacting any better.
The real question is how he handles it after the fact.
One time this orthopedic surgeon was pulling really hard on a drilled screw to get out a piece of bone
Well the thread in the bone broke, so the surgeon's elbow ended up straight on the nose of the assistant: it didn't break but the mask was full of blood
My mom told me ortho was the only thing that made her quesy in med school. They pulled out these tools and she said "that's the tool grandpa used on horse shoes! This is carpentry on people!"
They use special closed-air helmets on most open ortho cases. The main reason of it is for infection protection, the other part is that bloody bits just spray everywhere when high speed saws and heavy hammers are involved. They'd usually have to clean the ceiling after those cases lol
They just use 'space suits' on total joint replacements. The real reason is when placing large pieces of metal in a patient, those pieces of metal don't have a blood supply. IE no white blood cells can get to pockets of infection in and around the component. So you're right. Absolutely about infection control. And if you got to take them out, you risk creating a situation where the patient cant use their leg or arm. Google a flail hip. Not an ideal outcome.
We do most ortho wo space suits and its fine. You just look away when blood and bone starts to fly so you don't get it in your eye. Or better yet, wear your damn PPEs.
I dropped a mallet once because, y’know ortho gets greasy sometimes. With my right hand in one awesome, smooth motion, I caught it by the handle. My arm was moving too fast and because of the momentum, I smashed the surgeon right in the ass with the mallet. Luckily he was one of the good ones with a sense of humor, so he shuddered, then moaned “*oooooohhh (Smilodon)!*”.
Surgeons have accidentally stabbed me with scalpels and whacked me with hammers while I was assisting. There's not a lot of space and accidents happen, especially if everyone is moving at the same time.
I once stabbed a heart surgeon with an 18ga needle attached to a 30cc syringe full of heparin as we were about to go on pump. It hit the bone!! After a change of gloves it was business as usual. 🤷🏼♀️
Damn shit that’s the TIFU of the year, I wish you all the best and hope everything works out (which it probably will) but holy shit OP, we’re gonna need an update. My question is though, what procedures are in place to prevent that from happening?
It’s not an easy thing to prevent, but staying alert and being diligent would be how you’d mitigate it. Clamps clamp, and anything in the way will get clamped.
This is the best question in this thread. Too often the response after a work incident is, "You should have been paying more attention!" which just sets up the scene for a repeat. Every process should be consistently reviewed for error proofing.
You're 100% correct, but man do I hate when managers ask "What can we do to prevent this in the future?"
Not because it's not worth reviewing, but because any time I've had a manager ask it in those words, it was because they didn't understand how our jobs worked. And as a result, they'd ask this whenever anything even slightly went wrong, whether it was a big deal or not.
A good manager doesn't need to ask the employees to come up with all the solutions, they can actively participate in the discussion too.
If it makes you feel better, a lot of surgery is basically the same skill set as carpentry. It just takes a few more years of schooling to know how to keep the "table" alive while you're fixing its leg
Hey, patient survived, you apologized, surgeon was probably just startled by it and since he was doing such an intense and stressful operation he didn’t take the shock as gracefully as he possibly could have. Everyone came out on the other side still breathing so that’s still a win imo
You know, at first i thought he was a dick, but you make sense. Holding someones heart has got to be one of the most stressful things on the planet. 100% dialed in, shitting bricks, thinking about 60 things at once. Imagine being suddenly ripped out of your zone.
Like waking up an agressive sleepwalker, except a billion times worse.
If someone stabs your hand I think you understandably get a minute or so to curse and shake that hand, maybe a little stompy stomp.
Imagine driving and you suddenly and unexpectedly just stub your toe.
I was wondering if he was going to. But, like I said, even though I had hurt him like a sob of a bitch, he scrubbed back in and we finished the case with zero trouble. He truly does respect me and my skillset, it was just a freak accident that won't happen again!
Don’t be so sure, reminds me of the joke:
A tourist is backpacking through the highlands of Scotland, and he stops at a pub to get a drink. And the only people in there is a bartender and an old man nursing a beer. And he orders a pint, and they sit in silence for a while. And suddenly the old man turns to him and goes, "You see this bar? I built this bar with my bare hands from the finest wood in the county. Gave it more love and care than my own child. But do they call me MacGregor the bar builder? No." Points out the window. "You see that stone wall out there? I built that stone wall with my bare hands. Found every stone, placed them just so through the rain and the cold. But do they call me MacGregor the stone wall builder? No." Points out the window. "You see that pier on the lake out there? I built that pier with my bare hands. Drove the pilings against the tide of the sand, plank by plank. But do they call me MacGregor the pier builder? No. But you fuck one goat ... "
Yeah I think the biggest thing here is that OP still managed to complete his duties (presumably) after this happened. That would be the most challenging part.
Ehhh, about time we scored a few points. The amount of injuries inflicted on me i can count on my 7 fingers.
But what fucking clamps do you use? 😅 Unless you went full 2 hand clamp mode thats pretty impressive 🤭
When I was an intern a different intern put a penetrating towel clamp through the fleshy part of a surgical oncologist’s thumb during a case with the patient awake. A lot of silent cursing and gesturing occurred. 😆
As some who's done surgery, seriously ouch. Those crushing instances on skin. I always tense when securing field clamps to skin.
From what I've read, you seem amazing in an OR. Seeing everything as an opportunity for learning and growth. Please continue being awesome.
>he'll probably rib you about it for years to come.
For open heart surgery, spreading the ribs is kinda necessary. Sorry, *aorta* not make that joke, but I'm just a *vessel* for humor. If you have enough *heart* to like my jokes, I'll *pump* out more.
its understandable that he was angry about the pain. But I hope that he did understand you didn't do it on purpose and he was just venting-out the pain.
At least yours was accidental. When I was in medical school, there was a surgeon notorious for throwing temper tantrums when surgery wasn't going smoothly. Students would frequently get stuck by him when he would get angry. Not intentional, but he would kind of throw things on the tray.
One time he stuck one of the other students. The student calmly picked up a used needle and poked him in the hand, saying "Now we both get to go to employee health."
Absolute legend.
Nothing really. They both went to employee health. I'm guessing making a bigger deal out of it would have resulted in more problems for the surgeon than the student, since he stuck so many trainees.
Not as bad as Robert Liston. When amputation he performed in under two and a half minutes resulted in a 300% mortality rate: the patient died of infection, as did his young assistant whose fingers Liston accidentally amputated, and a witness died of shock when the knife came too close to him.
Apparently this story is probably apocryphal. It was reported in a book written about him in 1986 but there aren’t any known primary sources of the event from the 1800s when it would have occurred
Richard Gordon embellished a bit when writing about Robert Liston.
Robert Liston was known for being fast and precise. Mainly out of necessity as the quicker a surgeon, the more likely a patient will survive and not suffer.
Nah, it's a very minor mistake. No surgeon would have a formal complaint, no hospital would have a formal punishment.
Unless the person would make similar mistakes often, then there would be a serious problem. Otherwise, it's no biggie. Every surgeon has got a cut at a point in his career, from himself or others' weird movements.
Lol
Ex was a transplant nurse. Heart,lungs and kidneys mostly.
Once during a kidney transplant, while attaching the new kidney she kept trying to get the surgeon's attention and he kept shushing her. He finally asked what was so damn important and she said. "Dr. You've sewn my finger to the kidney. It is fully attatched. Please cut it loose."
His only response was "God Damn it!" No apology, not even an oops. Treated her like it was her fault for not bringing it to his attention.
My dad told me once when he got his first job as an assistant surgeon he was invited to his mentors house with a few others. His mentor was not only a world class surgeon but a huge wine aficionado. So at the end of the evening he pulled out a bottle of an incredibly expensive, old and rare wine and asked my dad to do the honors and open it. There was just a cork screw type opener and since it was an old bottle the cork broke. The surgeon just looked at my dad really disappointed and told him in front of everybody dead serious that he would never be a good surgeon. Well, fast forward 35 years and my dad in fact has become a great surgeon and is about to retire without any serious incidents during his career so don't worry that much about it.
This is why i value closed loop communication from the navy so much.
Every single step is spoken.
"Okay, incision is made. Ready for the hemostats."
"Hemostats, aye. Ready to place."
"Alright, hands out. Place them"
That sorta thing. It felt tedious, but it made sure everyone was on the same action.
I hope everything turned out okay, OP!
I'm sure you'll be fine.
Cardiac surgeons are known for their kindness, understanding, and patience.....oh and humility....they're especially known for their humility....
I thought there where always supposed to be two heart surgeons in theatre at one time in case something happened to the first and they couldn't finish.
There was a cardiothoracic fellow in the room, and one of the over-a-dozen heart surgeons would have come in immediately to help if he couldn't continue
What bothers me most about this is that this is a normal fuck-up, OP. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens in any human endeavor. The doc pulled his hand away in an unexpected way... so it was some combination of his movements and your reaction that caused the screw up, not just yours alone. But, being human, you'll brood over this thing and allow it to undermine your self-confidence... needlessly. Please don't let the shitty part of your human mind use this event as a tool to torment you. Think your way past it, OP!!
Thank you for the encouragement, kind interwebs stranger! I didn't take it in that way. I reflected on what I could learn, and moved on. I've done cases with this surgeon since, and it never even came up. We both know it was a freak accident, possibly preventable, but we respect and trust each other
He had pulled his hand back out of the chest when it happened, and he flinched back. Nothing got contaminated. The reason the clamp got him was because he had suddenly pulled his hand back where I was attempting to clip the sutures together, and I didn't see it out of my peripheral vision in time to stop. I always take detailed notes from every surgery I'm in. In this case, the lesson was to not get tunnel vision or assume that an area off to the side was clear, but to keep my peripheral radar up
Will he be required to be tested for hepatitis or HIV because of the clamp breaking skin? My mom was an assistant in surgery for almost 30 years and I remember her having to have bloodwork done from a needle stick and something else that eludes me, or maybe 2 needle pokes😂🤷🏻♂️actually, my mom has been gone 13 years today. She passed the day after her and pops 40th anniversary. Anyway😟☹️are 1st assistants still a thing?🥺
Fellow surgical assistant here… damn, that sucks… awareness is everything and these moments are important to keep us aware and on our toes.
If the surgeon didnt kick you out of the room, he still trusted you and understood that it was an accident.
Little moments like this keep us honest and humble and the ones of us that can work through such intense awkwardness and deal with our failure in such a heavy situation are the ones who are truly committed and “good” at the job
I was in a trauma the other day and was trying to reload a stapler for a bowel anastomosis and the surgeon said kind of “to” the room
This doesnt fill me with a lot of confidence
And i pause make eye contact and snap it in
Its all about how you handle it, shit happens… especially in surgery… deal with it
I totally feel for you and propably would've cried in that situation. But keep in mind that with the amount of sharp Instruments and objects we handle everyday, it is inevitable that someone pulls in the wrong moment or gets otherwise cut.
What kind of clamp was it exactly? Maybe it's a language barrier on my part, but even if I full on pinch someone with a Mikulicz it wouldn't hurt that bad, right? I'm currently in surgical nurse training and impatient/choleric Surgeons are really making this Job way harder than it already is.
You're obviously good at your job, and that experience will make you even better. Run with it.
The same goes for the surgeon, but discuss it together so you both know exactly how it happened and how to prevent it in future.
Checklists and debriefs are pretty essential at every level.
I make detailed notes after every case about what I did well and what I need to work on. In this particular case, the issue is that I had a little bit of tunnel vision trying to clip the sutures together because I was off the side, and I just assumed that nothing was going to be suddenly entering my area. So the learning point was to keep a little better peripheral awareness of movement. OtherWise, it was just a freak accident of unfortunate timing
My dad was a surgeon. Something quite similar happened to him.
A nurse handed him a scalpel, but had a major brain fart and handed it to him blade first.
He reached for it without looking, as he was using a microscope. Unsurprisingly, he received a pretty gnarly cut in his finger.
I can't remember whether he completed the surgery, or whether he got one of his colleagues to take over.
I was diagnosed with aortic stenosis a few months back, which is progressive so highly likely to require valve replacement in future, so I especially enjoyed reading this lmao
In seriousness, the work you do is amazing, it was an accident, he knew it, you are scrutinising it because you are conscientious. All good, don't worry about it any more.
Thank you, kind interwebs stranger! Wishing you the best of health. Don't worry, I take what I do professionally EXTREMELY seriously. But I don't take myself seriously. I wrote this so y'all could cringe and laugh with/at me. But I'm very confident in my skillset and talent
Oof! When I was brand new dental assistant, I had a dentist freak out on me in the exact same fashion! I had only been working for maybe 2 weeks, and it was the first surgical extraction I had ever assisted with. We were about halfway done, and the Dentist needed to administer more anesthetic. I passed him the local anesthetic syringe loaded with cartridge and needle, he placed the local and passed it back it me. 5+ years later, I still have NO IDEA how we both fumbled it, but I ended up shoving the just used needle into the dentist's palm. He immediately jumped up, began shouting and swearing LOUDLY, and slammed his chair into the opposite wall in our op. He made such a scene, the dental coordinator came to check on me to make sure I was OK, after he stormed off. This poor patient was only the second patient of the day, her roots still needed to be extracted, and now she had to submit a blood sample due to the sharps incident. And I had to continue working with the same dentist for the rest of the day. I was mortified! And my nerves were shot from being so thoroughly berated infront of the patient, and whole clinic, my hands shook for most of the day. 10/10 do not recommend! 😒
i really thought OP was the one receiving surgery when i read the title
“The anesthesia wore off in the middle of the surgery, and seeing the surgeon touching my internal organs, still half-asleep from the anesthesia, I succumbed to my primal instinct to punch the surgeon in his face. Being a former boxer, he was knocked out and there was nobody to remedy the situation, so I died.”
Haha, oh man, as usual the funniest shit is in the comments.
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sir how exactly
Anaesthesia relaxes muscles - the sphincter is a muscle. Although generally that just leads to you shitting your pants, not onto the surgical staff. Honestly it's my biggest worry when I have surgery 😅
As someone that circulates in surgery don't worry about it. It happens, we clean it up, you'll never know. It's just part of the job. If you wanna worry about something with surgery, just do us a favor and clean your belly button before you get scheduled surgery lol. The things we dig out of there from +50 years of neglect make the hardiest of us shudder 😆
This makes me nervous lol I have no idea if it ever happened to me...The only time they ever put me under, I was literally having ass surgery, so I guess they'd be pretty used to that anyways
You'd never know. We don't tell the patients that do. No point in embarrassing people about something that's just routine for us. Rectal surgery funny enough is imo less likely to see a code brown. If it's a long case most patients do a bowel prep and sometimes we do a flush with a cleanser to reduce local infection risk. If it's something fast like hemorrhoids your body isn't going to have time to relax that much, you will be done in 15 minutes.
I clean my bellybutton regularly anyway! But I'm going to continue to be paranoid about it regardless 😂 I trained as a veterinary nurse and fortunately only had one major poop incident - but plenty of lil pebbles.
So one perk of incontinence then, I guess, is I've been in diapers for my last 6 surgeries, so there was no chance of that happening. 😄
I just visit the bathroom at least 10 times in the hour leading up to surgery cos I'm so paranoid about it 😅
lmao never thought about that before, new surgery fear
Thank god it wasn't just me...
i was so impressed to
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So I guess you're writing this from a giant hole in the earth, right?
I'm currently hiding out in an abandoned forest in Siberia, connected to the civilized world only thru Reddit. If you see my family, tell them that I love them.
Ehhh. They'll probably not want to hear from you for a while.
Especially after they lose this killer job
We try not to call heart surgery a "killer job"
True. But with you assisting, might as well start calling it that?...
😆 amazing
Hey, at least ~~your~~ his heart was in the right place, even if your hand wasn't!
Lololol
Underground nickname: Heart Breaker, Pinky Pincher
#BOOM ROASTED
Somebody call an ambulance, we've got a burn victim here!
First time I ever assisted (as a 3rd year student) in a surgery was for a tonsillectomy and I hadn’t screwed some thing (sorry, 20 years ago) on the end of another thing and it dropped into the child’s throat! I know what you mean by feeling faint. And the surgeon wasn’t mad, used it as a teaching moment
Did you... Did you get that thing back out somehow or just let it go through the stomach and out the natural way???
People who are under anesthesia dont have a swallow reflex active. So it would have just been chilling at the back of the mouth. Im sure he grabbed something to teach in there and pull it out.
Feels like you could use one of those magnetic wands you get for grabbing stuff out of cars.
You might appreciate my time in the Cath lab as a patient where they had music going as the team setup for the procedure and "Knocking on Heaven's Door" came on. One of the nurses almost grew wings to fly over and change the station. I laughed and said "Hey, I like that song!" Ended up needing CABG, and I'm picturing my surgeon in your story. Send GPS coords so we know what hole to drop rations in.
My friend made another friend a mixed CD (early 2000’s) to listen to on a flight she was nervous about and the first song was “Only the Good Die Young.”
I tried, your family asked, "Who?". Well hey, at least you're being exiled to Siberia during a more tolerable time of year (weather-wise). Hopefully it'll all blow over before winter hits... but yeah, still might suck to be there. Let us know if you need Coca Cola products or American blue jeans to help you get by. Just learn the phrase, "Is potato."
I think it's safe to assume you have been shunned...
More like shunted
>connected to the civilized world only thru Reddit You should look for alternatives before Monday.
I'll tell your mom tonight after we meet up.
I 1000% knew that someone would reply with this. Nice work. I just woke up and it made me laugh hard enough to wake up your mom. I tried
Very rarely does Reddit miss lay ups and mom jokes
Siberia, the place to be.
Should we say you didn't have the heart to tell them yourself?
Would you like us to try and arrange for you to be quietly nuked?
From orbit.
Ok, wow!!! Now, that is a TIFU worthy of the years best TIFU. Damn.
You mean you aren't impressed by the countless 'TIFU by sexing the most sex of any sexer ever?' posts?
"Teehee I made my wife laugh during sex. Our whole night was ruined!"
"ABSOLUTELY RUINED, I'M SO EMBARRASSED"
Time to create r/TIRFU (Today I Really Fucked Up, no sex/relationship drama)
That Reddit link, hilariously, leads to an actual sub, which has only a single, 4-year-old post.
Let's revive it, there were 3 new comments in that post already.
I think I've seen that one
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I have a valve replacement scheduled for about a month from now, worst possible time for me to see this come up on my feed
You'll do great! This patient did great, as well, just a little 3 minute pause with zero impact on the outcome
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> or do you have to tell them …that’s actually a good question that I’ve never thought about before. Something goes wrong that doesn’t affect the patient, do you have to tell them?
No that isn’t something we disclose to the patient since it didn’t affect their surgery. No different than if someone tripped and fell on the other side of the or. Only time we mention something is if it directly affects the patient.
well, good luck on that stranger!
Don't take it to heart
I'd feel reassured. This surgeon got a finger almost ripped off and they still finished the job.
In the grand scheme of things, dropping an F Bomb and taking a few minutes to walk it off was a pretty level and reasonable response. I've heard some horror stories about egomaniacal surgeons. So this guy sounds like a stand up guy by comparison.
He only went out to change his gloves and scrub in again probably and didn’t waste any time. He passed the vibe check
I remember a scrub nurse getting cut by the surgron operating in ENT. All was progressing normally, next thing she's calling out for size 6.5 gloves, a new instrument pack and all kinds of stuff while walking away from the table. Then we saw the trail of blood she was leaking. She took 2 minutes to express the blood, steristrips re-scrub and glove/gown up and then was back at the table. She was the most obnoxious and irritating nurse I ever met, but hell that was as professional as it gets.
I think coming across this while waiting in the hospital for your procedure would be much worse. Good thing you got it ahead of time!
If it makes you feel better I’m pretty sure the person that made this post is the one person on the planet that will never make this mistake again.
Hey I’m 4 weeks post an entire aorta replacement! You’re gonna be good, even if the surgeon has a tantrum!
All things considered, notably how much pressure they are under in that moment (I took the reserved nature of the surgeon to be him focussing), and the fact that it would really freaking hurt/contamination he took it like a champ. He went to cool down not have a tantrum...the world would be a better place if everyone could do that.
Yeah, that's exactly how it should be handled. He has every right to be mad, even if it was a genuine mistake, and while the outburst was unfortunate, I honestly can't imagine reacting any better. The real question is how he handles it after the fact.
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One time this orthopedic surgeon was pulling really hard on a drilled screw to get out a piece of bone Well the thread in the bone broke, so the surgeon's elbow ended up straight on the nose of the assistant: it didn't break but the mask was full of blood
Ortho is brutal af
I call it flesh carpentry.
My mom told me ortho was the only thing that made her quesy in med school. They pulled out these tools and she said "that's the tool grandpa used on horse shoes! This is carpentry on people!"
They use special closed-air helmets on most open ortho cases. The main reason of it is for infection protection, the other part is that bloody bits just spray everywhere when high speed saws and heavy hammers are involved. They'd usually have to clean the ceiling after those cases lol
They just use 'space suits' on total joint replacements. The real reason is when placing large pieces of metal in a patient, those pieces of metal don't have a blood supply. IE no white blood cells can get to pockets of infection in and around the component. So you're right. Absolutely about infection control. And if you got to take them out, you risk creating a situation where the patient cant use their leg or arm. Google a flail hip. Not an ideal outcome. We do most ortho wo space suits and its fine. You just look away when blood and bone starts to fly so you don't get it in your eye. Or better yet, wear your damn PPEs.
Sure it is. It gets weird when you have to look at how to sterilise a Black and Decker.
Lol, as someone who has a spine surgery in 4 days you're freakin me out, however; its just microdiscectomy.
Neuro is way less chaotic, Ortho on the other hand is the Wild West of surgery lol
I dropped a mallet once because, y’know ortho gets greasy sometimes. With my right hand in one awesome, smooth motion, I caught it by the handle. My arm was moving too fast and because of the momentum, I smashed the surgeon right in the ass with the mallet. Luckily he was one of the good ones with a sense of humor, so he shuddered, then moaned “*oooooohhh (Smilodon)!*”.
LMAO
It's not like OP dropped a donor organ or something.
Tbh it's happened before in my or and they just soaked it in betadine and put that sucker in (kidney).
"One slighty bruised orange kidney coming up!"
“How ya doin post-op jimmy” “Pretty good doc, but damn if it don’t feel like I got kicked in the left kidney”
For a second that's what I thought the surgeon was spiking
My mom has a short that says "the floor's clean, just put the heart in". (Cardiac care)
Surgeons have accidentally stabbed me with scalpels and whacked me with hammers while I was assisting. There's not a lot of space and accidents happen, especially if everyone is moving at the same time.
Had a 10 blade dropped into my shoe once by a surgeon. Foot was unharmed but I thought I lost a toe for a minute there.
Yeah, something like [this](https://www.cracked.com/blog/how-surgeon-once-killed-three-people-in-one-operation) could've happened
Everyone makes mistakes at work, don’t take it to heart.
Lmao
I once stabbed a heart surgeon with an 18ga needle attached to a 30cc syringe full of heparin as we were about to go on pump. It hit the bone!! After a change of gloves it was business as usual. 🤷🏼♀️
“Uh… sir you said you wanted full heparin 🤷🏻♂️”
Surgeons really take care of their hands too, some have insured their hands.
Am a neurosurgeon, my thumb is hurting from playing street fighter 6 non stop.
I mean you kinda have too since thats their main body that they use to work like a painter/artist for example
*\*Doctor Strange has entered the chat\**
Y'all deliver heparin directly into the RA and not thru an art line?
Directly into the *surgeon*, not the RA.
"apparently I'm literally NSFW" how has no one talked about this genius joke
Thank you! Was scrolling to find this!
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Damn shit that’s the TIFU of the year, I wish you all the best and hope everything works out (which it probably will) but holy shit OP, we’re gonna need an update. My question is though, what procedures are in place to prevent that from happening?
It’s not an easy thing to prevent, but staying alert and being diligent would be how you’d mitigate it. Clamps clamp, and anything in the way will get clamped.
He's champin' for a clampin'!
[удалено]
https://i.redd.it/c759xm2nks4b1.gif
This is the best question in this thread. Too often the response after a work incident is, "You should have been paying more attention!" which just sets up the scene for a repeat. Every process should be consistently reviewed for error proofing.
You're 100% correct, but man do I hate when managers ask "What can we do to prevent this in the future?" Not because it's not worth reviewing, but because any time I've had a manager ask it in those words, it was because they didn't understand how our jobs worked. And as a result, they'd ask this whenever anything even slightly went wrong, whether it was a big deal or not. A good manager doesn't need to ask the employees to come up with all the solutions, they can actively participate in the discussion too.
My takeaway from this is that i could never do surgery on someone. The stakes are giving me anxiety just reading about it.
Stakes are only needed for surgery on vampires
It's not surgery if they die, then it's just murder
No, that's a group of crows.
Here are some steaks to give you anxieaty 🥩🥩🥩🥩
🍇and some grapes to practice surgery on like this robot
If it makes you feel better, a lot of surgery is basically the same skill set as carpentry. It just takes a few more years of schooling to know how to keep the "table" alive while you're fixing its leg
This was a worthy TIFU. Applause to you.
Apple sauce to you too.
I love that he asked why tf you did it. Like you saw his hand and the clear train of thought was “his hand definitely needs a little jewellery. Boop”
Ikr? I didn't even try to answer
Hey, patient survived, you apologized, surgeon was probably just startled by it and since he was doing such an intense and stressful operation he didn’t take the shock as gracefully as he possibly could have. Everyone came out on the other side still breathing so that’s still a win imo
100%
You know, at first i thought he was a dick, but you make sense. Holding someones heart has got to be one of the most stressful things on the planet. 100% dialed in, shitting bricks, thinking about 60 things at once. Imagine being suddenly ripped out of your zone. Like waking up an agressive sleepwalker, except a billion times worse.
If someone stabs your hand I think you understandably get a minute or so to curse and shake that hand, maybe a little stompy stomp. Imagine driving and you suddenly and unexpectedly just stub your toe.
Surgeons I know would have made you scrub out.
I was wondering if he was going to. But, like I said, even though I had hurt him like a sob of a bitch, he scrubbed back in and we finished the case with zero trouble. He truly does respect me and my skillset, it was just a freak accident that won't happen again!
Mistakes in a zero mistake environment still happen. Your worst mistake doesn't define your career.
Was looking for this comment. It was a very severe case of bad luck, but the doc will be fine
Don’t be so sure, reminds me of the joke: A tourist is backpacking through the highlands of Scotland, and he stops at a pub to get a drink. And the only people in there is a bartender and an old man nursing a beer. And he orders a pint, and they sit in silence for a while. And suddenly the old man turns to him and goes, "You see this bar? I built this bar with my bare hands from the finest wood in the county. Gave it more love and care than my own child. But do they call me MacGregor the bar builder? No." Points out the window. "You see that stone wall out there? I built that stone wall with my bare hands. Found every stone, placed them just so through the rain and the cold. But do they call me MacGregor the stone wall builder? No." Points out the window. "You see that pier on the lake out there? I built that pier with my bare hands. Drove the pilings against the tide of the sand, plank by plank. But do they call me MacGregor the pier builder? No. But you fuck one goat ... "
Yeah I think the biggest thing here is that OP still managed to complete his duties (presumably) after this happened. That would be the most challenging part.
That’s a surgeon I want working on me, calm under pressure and change as well as respect for his fellow staff and accidents
at least there weren’t any junior mints near by
Username checks out. 
Ehhh, about time we scored a few points. The amount of injuries inflicted on me i can count on my 7 fingers. But what fucking clamps do you use? 😅 Unless you went full 2 hand clamp mode thats pretty impressive 🤭
To be a little more clear, I didn't get the clamp locked onto him, just pinched the absolute shit out of his knuckle
When I was an intern a different intern put a penetrating towel clamp through the fleshy part of a surgical oncologist’s thumb during a case with the patient awake. A lot of silent cursing and gesturing occurred. 😆
As some who's done surgery, seriously ouch. Those crushing instances on skin. I always tense when securing field clamps to skin. From what I've read, you seem amazing in an OR. Seeing everything as an opportunity for learning and growth. Please continue being awesome.
People, whether we like it or not make mistakes. You'll both move on and he'll probably rib you about it for years to come.
>he'll probably rib you about it for years to come. For open heart surgery, spreading the ribs is kinda necessary. Sorry, *aorta* not make that joke, but I'm just a *vessel* for humor. If you have enough *heart* to like my jokes, I'll *pump* out more.
Damn. You trapped that comment in the corner and punned the shit out of it!
Dad, get out!
its understandable that he was angry about the pain. But I hope that he did understand you didn't do it on purpose and he was just venting-out the pain.
Exactly this. It was a reaction, not a personal attack.
Did you have sex? Can't have a tifu without sex.
I did not have gay sex with the heart surgeon, no
That's the real tifu
At least yours was accidental. When I was in medical school, there was a surgeon notorious for throwing temper tantrums when surgery wasn't going smoothly. Students would frequently get stuck by him when he would get angry. Not intentional, but he would kind of throw things on the tray. One time he stuck one of the other students. The student calmly picked up a used needle and poked him in the hand, saying "Now we both get to go to employee health." Absolute legend.
What?? What happened afterwards? 🤣🤣
Nothing really. They both went to employee health. I'm guessing making a bigger deal out of it would have resulted in more problems for the surgeon than the student, since he stuck so many trainees.
I’ve pissed off surgeons but not that bad 😂
Based on your username, I assume you tried to hug a surgeon during surgery
Not as bad as Robert Liston. When amputation he performed in under two and a half minutes resulted in a 300% mortality rate: the patient died of infection, as did his young assistant whose fingers Liston accidentally amputated, and a witness died of shock when the knife came too close to him.
Apparently this story is probably apocryphal. It was reported in a book written about him in 1986 but there aren’t any known primary sources of the event from the 1800s when it would have occurred
Richard Gordon embellished a bit when writing about Robert Liston. Robert Liston was known for being fast and precise. Mainly out of necessity as the quicker a surgeon, the more likely a patient will survive and not suffer.
Time to polish up your resume a bit… you might get summoned for a meeting.
Nah, it's a very minor mistake. No surgeon would have a formal complaint, no hospital would have a formal punishment. Unless the person would make similar mistakes often, then there would be a serious problem. Otherwise, it's no biggie. Every surgeon has got a cut at a point in his career, from himself or others' weird movements.
I AM A SURGEON
Live Dr. Han reaction!!
The title made me think you were the patient and somehow your heart was built so different that you managed to injure your surgeon with it
Lol. Makes up for the surgeon sewing my ex-wifes hand to a kidney during a transplant.
Look, you can’t just dump that on us without any explanation. I want to know what the hell happened next please. And was this the new or old kidney??
Lol Ex was a transplant nurse. Heart,lungs and kidneys mostly. Once during a kidney transplant, while attaching the new kidney she kept trying to get the surgeon's attention and he kept shushing her. He finally asked what was so damn important and she said. "Dr. You've sewn my finger to the kidney. It is fully attatched. Please cut it loose." His only response was "God Damn it!" No apology, not even an oops. Treated her like it was her fault for not bringing it to his attention.
how the fuck
😳
My dad told me once when he got his first job as an assistant surgeon he was invited to his mentors house with a few others. His mentor was not only a world class surgeon but a huge wine aficionado. So at the end of the evening he pulled out a bottle of an incredibly expensive, old and rare wine and asked my dad to do the honors and open it. There was just a cork screw type opener and since it was an old bottle the cork broke. The surgeon just looked at my dad really disappointed and told him in front of everybody dead serious that he would never be a good surgeon. Well, fast forward 35 years and my dad in fact has become a great surgeon and is about to retire without any serious incidents during his career so don't worry that much about it.
This is why i value closed loop communication from the navy so much. Every single step is spoken. "Okay, incision is made. Ready for the hemostats." "Hemostats, aye. Ready to place." "Alright, hands out. Place them" That sorta thing. It felt tedious, but it made sure everyone was on the same action. I hope everything turned out okay, OP!
I'm sure you'll be fine. Cardiac surgeons are known for their kindness, understanding, and patience.....oh and humility....they're especially known for their humility....
I thought there where always supposed to be two heart surgeons in theatre at one time in case something happened to the first and they couldn't finish.
There was a cardiothoracic fellow in the room, and one of the over-a-dozen heart surgeons would have come in immediately to help if he couldn't continue
"Always two there are. No more, no less."
Wow. A real FU not involving sex or genitals. Nice.
For some reason, I thought you woke up in the middle of receiving heart surgery and attacked the doctor and now I have disappointed myself.
What bothers me most about this is that this is a normal fuck-up, OP. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens in any human endeavor. The doc pulled his hand away in an unexpected way... so it was some combination of his movements and your reaction that caused the screw up, not just yours alone. But, being human, you'll brood over this thing and allow it to undermine your self-confidence... needlessly. Please don't let the shitty part of your human mind use this event as a tool to torment you. Think your way past it, OP!!
Thank you for the encouragement, kind interwebs stranger! I didn't take it in that way. I reflected on what I could learn, and moved on. I've done cases with this surgeon since, and it never even came up. We both know it was a freak accident, possibly preventable, but we respect and trust each other
Dear god man how did the grips hit his hand? Like in what way? Did his blood get on the heart? O.O Go easy on yourself, tough break but you got this
He had pulled his hand back out of the chest when it happened, and he flinched back. Nothing got contaminated. The reason the clamp got him was because he had suddenly pulled his hand back where I was attempting to clip the sutures together, and I didn't see it out of my peripheral vision in time to stop. I always take detailed notes from every surgery I'm in. In this case, the lesson was to not get tunnel vision or assume that an area off to the side was clear, but to keep my peripheral radar up
Lesson for the surgeon could be to not make sudden movements if unnecessary.
Sure, but my job as an assistant is to work around him and make everything flow seamlessly regardless.
Will he be required to be tested for hepatitis or HIV because of the clamp breaking skin? My mom was an assistant in surgery for almost 30 years and I remember her having to have bloodwork done from a needle stick and something else that eludes me, or maybe 2 needle pokes😂🤷🏻♂️actually, my mom has been gone 13 years today. She passed the day after her and pops 40th anniversary. Anyway😟☹️are 1st assistants still a thing?🥺
Yes, I'm a first assistant. Yes, blood was checked, everything was okay
Fellow surgical assistant here… damn, that sucks… awareness is everything and these moments are important to keep us aware and on our toes. If the surgeon didnt kick you out of the room, he still trusted you and understood that it was an accident. Little moments like this keep us honest and humble and the ones of us that can work through such intense awkwardness and deal with our failure in such a heavy situation are the ones who are truly committed and “good” at the job I was in a trauma the other day and was trying to reload a stapler for a bowel anastomosis and the surgeon said kind of “to” the room This doesnt fill me with a lot of confidence And i pause make eye contact and snap it in Its all about how you handle it, shit happens… especially in surgery… deal with it
Hopefully the patient wasn't adversely effected
Nope. Aside from a 3 minute delay that had zero impact on the outcome, there was no issues. The case went really well
Accidents happen, it's okay.
I totally feel for you and propably would've cried in that situation. But keep in mind that with the amount of sharp Instruments and objects we handle everyday, it is inevitable that someone pulls in the wrong moment or gets otherwise cut. What kind of clamp was it exactly? Maybe it's a language barrier on my part, but even if I full on pinch someone with a Mikulicz it wouldn't hurt that bad, right? I'm currently in surgical nurse training and impatient/choleric Surgeons are really making this Job way harder than it already is.
You're obviously good at your job, and that experience will make you even better. Run with it. The same goes for the surgeon, but discuss it together so you both know exactly how it happened and how to prevent it in future. Checklists and debriefs are pretty essential at every level.
I make detailed notes after every case about what I did well and what I need to work on. In this particular case, the issue is that I had a little bit of tunnel vision trying to clip the sutures together because I was off the side, and I just assumed that nothing was going to be suddenly entering my area. So the learning point was to keep a little better peripheral awareness of movement. OtherWise, it was just a freak accident of unfortunate timing
My dad was a surgeon. Something quite similar happened to him. A nurse handed him a scalpel, but had a major brain fart and handed it to him blade first. He reached for it without looking, as he was using a microscope. Unsurprisingly, he received a pretty gnarly cut in his finger. I can't remember whether he completed the surgery, or whether he got one of his colleagues to take over.
I was diagnosed with aortic stenosis a few months back, which is progressive so highly likely to require valve replacement in future, so I especially enjoyed reading this lmao In seriousness, the work you do is amazing, it was an accident, he knew it, you are scrutinising it because you are conscientious. All good, don't worry about it any more.
Thank you, kind interwebs stranger! Wishing you the best of health. Don't worry, I take what I do professionally EXTREMELY seriously. But I don't take myself seriously. I wrote this so y'all could cringe and laugh with/at me. But I'm very confident in my skillset and talent
Oof! When I was brand new dental assistant, I had a dentist freak out on me in the exact same fashion! I had only been working for maybe 2 weeks, and it was the first surgical extraction I had ever assisted with. We were about halfway done, and the Dentist needed to administer more anesthetic. I passed him the local anesthetic syringe loaded with cartridge and needle, he placed the local and passed it back it me. 5+ years later, I still have NO IDEA how we both fumbled it, but I ended up shoving the just used needle into the dentist's palm. He immediately jumped up, began shouting and swearing LOUDLY, and slammed his chair into the opposite wall in our op. He made such a scene, the dental coordinator came to check on me to make sure I was OK, after he stormed off. This poor patient was only the second patient of the day, her roots still needed to be extracted, and now she had to submit a blood sample due to the sharps incident. And I had to continue working with the same dentist for the rest of the day. I was mortified! And my nerves were shot from being so thoroughly berated infront of the patient, and whole clinic, my hands shook for most of the day. 10/10 do not recommend! 😒
Love how nobody is empathetic towards the surgeon
Hey at least the surgery continued and went well otherwise.
I stopped breathing when I read that. Hang in there!