Nurse! Bring me an Otis Elevator!

Tuesday morning at one of the local outpatient surgery centers, I hurry over to the elevator to go to the third floor O.R., and the door is almost closed. I make it in time to activate the mechanism that slides the door back open. As I enter the elevator, I notice a woman standing in the back, and the Smith and Nephew endoscopy rep, here for my next case, is revealed behind the elevator door as it opens. I look up at him-I am six feet tall and he towers over me-and say "Oh, hi!" As he begins to reply, I see that the doors have stopped closing at about 3/4ths of the way. The elevator starts to ascend an inch or two, seems to realize that the doors are still open, and gently bounces back down to floor level.
Now, I am not fond of elevators in any manner. If they do any little thing that is jerky or it sways, or goes too fast, or stops too sudden, or is in any way what I consider abnormal, I either pucker up and finish the ride if I'm already committed, being sure to take the stairs for the return trip, or I bail out in a panic. This time I had opportunity to bail and I took it.
"Oh CRAP! I'm not taking this elevator! I'm taking the stairs! See you up there." I said to the rep as I bail out.
At the top of the third floor landing I'm confronted with an electronic key pad that you have to punch a code into to open the door. I don't have the code. No problem, I pull out my cell and dial the surgery center to tell them to please come open the door. My cell phone wails in my ear informing me that there is no service at the third floor landing. As I contemplate just how I'm going to get in without going back down the stairs and getting on an elevator, someone hears me knock and lets me in.
I thought nothing more of it as the case progressed. The rep and the scrub tech were chatting back and forth and something reminded me to ask, " What is the code for the keypad?"
The scrub joked with me that he wasn't sure if he was allowed to give it to me. I asked what I was supposed to do if I didn't want to take the elevator? The rep then said, "Yeah, after you got off the little girl said, Mommy, are we going to be alright?"
"What! Little girl? I never saw a little girl!?"
"Yeah, she asked her mom, why did that girl get off? Is something wrong? Are we going to be alright?"
I was so embarrassed!
The rep said, "I told her we would be fine."
Somehow I could see how a little girl would be comforted by this giant, soft spoken, strong man. But I got ribbed for trying to scare the children going to the second floor pediatric clinic!

d'oh !

I have been trying to come up with some beliefs about anatomy, physiology, and surgery that I held before I knew any better.

Here's what I have so far.....

If the bowel is eviscerated (small bowel) all of those slippery loops MUST go back into the abdomen and lay EXACTLY as they had before they came out.

If your appendix bursts, you will die within the hour.

Here are some things I recently discovered....

The reason they tell you in high school health class not to pop pimples in the danger zone, or "triangle of death" the triangle from either side of your upper lip to an apex at the bridge of your nose, is because the nasty stuff inside the pimple might travel backwards eventually reaching your sinuses, instead of shooting across the room. Sinuses are the front door to your brain.

It took me five years to suddenly realize what was meant by a loop ostomy.

Hungry P.A.s are scaring me

A few of the local surgical groups have PAs that help them in clinic and then assist in surgery. Up until now, they have been little threat to my livelihood of first assisting. Most PAs work with one or maybe two different surgeons and so, the rest of the group still needs me, or someone like me. Then I got all wrapped up in Ortho. Don't get me wrong, I love my Ortho docs. I work with three of them consistently, all of them from the same group, but suddenly they all, well two of them anyway, want to use a PA. They don't have one. That doesn't stop them. They "borrow" a PA from their partners. I know the docs hate rounds (here they have to round at up to four (five?) different hospitals), and those pesky phone calls from the floor, or from the patients wanting prescription refills on the weekend, so, one hungry PA to the rescue. This PA will shadow their call, do their rounds, field those phone calls and alas, assist them in surgery. Granted it is only when the surgeon is on call, but that used to be my gig. Call cases were my extra cash. Extra cash if the patient was insured anyway. My motto has always been, "Quantity, not quality." Not to be confused with my other motto, "Buy high, sell low." I figure that if I scoop every case available, I'll have about a 70% chance that I'll get paid. Now I feel the need to solicit some more general surgeons. At least not being on call will give me more time to sit at home and wonder what I'm missing while I'm wishing I were working. Some are just waiting for this PA to burn out. I am one of them. The irony of the situation is that one of my orthopods using the PA is the same orthopod that convinced me that I shouldn't spend my money on PA school if what I wanted to do was assist.