if Weaver had come in late for some reason? What if the OR was short of nurses? There could be millions of reasons why a case could be delayed.
Lynn took an elevator down three floors. Feeling a bit like a fish out of water, she walked into the surgical lounge. It was another one of those places medical students didn’t wander around unaccompanied. Like the rest of the hospital, it too was crowded, since the OR was in full swing. Most or all of the lounge-style chairs and couches were occupied by doctors and nurses. All were in scrubs. A TV in the corner was tuned to CNN with the volume turned way down. Most people were reading newspapers, either waiting to begin or taking a quick break in the middle of cases already under way.
Fearful of calling attention to herself and possibly being ordered to leave, Lynn didn’t hesitate. She stepped into the room farenough to see the image of the OR white board in the monitor mounted on the wall. She looked for Weaver’s name and found it in OR 12. He was doing an anterior cruciate ligament, all right, but the patient’s name was Harper Landry, not Carl Vandermeer. So obviously Carl’s case was over.
Lynn’s eyes scanned around the room for a familiar face, somebody, anybody she might know however vaguely from either her orthopedic elective or from third-year surgery. But she didn’t recognize anyone. With sudden resolve she went into the women’s changing room.
Getting some scrubs, she changed quickly, using an empty locker for her clothes. After tucking her moderately long hair into a cap and grabbing a surgical mask, she checked herself in the mirror. The almost-white surgical hat emphasized her olive complexion, and without the benefit of her thick hair to frame her face, she thought her youthful, angled features and slightly upturned nose made her appear younger than she was. Combined with her height, she worried she was going to stand out like a sore thumb as a first-year medical student who didn’t belong. More to conceal her identity than to be aseptic, she put on the mask.
Satisfied, she returned to the lounge. Without hesitating, for fear she would lose her nerve, as Lynn generally followed rules, she walked out of the lounge and pushed her way through the double doors into the OR suite. She had been there before on numerous occasions during her monthlong orthopedic elective and even a few times during third-year surgery, but always accompanied. She had even assisted Weaver as well as a few other surgeons to get a close-up idea of orthopedic surgery. To her, orthopedic surgery was a lot different from what Karen had suggested. It wasn’t eye surgery, to be sure, but with newer tools it was considerably more precise than it had been.
Lynn half expected that she would be challenged, but she wasn’t.She kept moving at a good clip with the belief that any hesitation on her part would be a tip-off that she was an interloper. Her destination was the PACU, and she headed directly for it. She pushed through the second set of double swinging doors as if she belonged, but then stopped a few feet inside the room.
For most people, Lynn included, the PACU was a busy, alien world of high tech, which made students feel incompetent. The patients were on elevated beds with side rails. Most of the beds were occupied. There were no dividers between the beds. Each seemingly sleeping patient had at least one nurse, many with a nursing assistant as well. Fresh bandages covered varying areas of the patients’ bodies. Clusters of intravenous containers that appeared like plastic fruit hung on the tops of metal poles. The lines snaked down to run mostly into exposed arms, although a few were central lines going into the neck. Monitors were clustered on the wall over the head of each bed, with various electronic blips tracing lines across their screens. Plastic bags hung under the beds for drainage and urine. Several of the patients had ventilators for assisted respiration. The sounds
Lynn took an elevator down three floors. Feeling a bit like a fish out of water, she walked into the surgical lounge. It was another one of those places medical students didn’t wander around unaccompanied. Like the rest of the hospital, it too was crowded, since the OR was in full swing. Most or all of the lounge-style chairs and couches were occupied by doctors and nurses. All were in scrubs. A TV in the corner was tuned to CNN with the volume turned way down. Most people were reading newspapers, either waiting to begin or taking a quick break in the middle of cases already under way.
Fearful of calling attention to herself and possibly being ordered to leave, Lynn didn’t hesitate. She stepped into the room farenough to see the image of the OR white board in the monitor mounted on the wall. She looked for Weaver’s name and found it in OR 12. He was doing an anterior cruciate ligament, all right, but the patient’s name was Harper Landry, not Carl Vandermeer. So obviously Carl’s case was over.
Lynn’s eyes scanned around the room for a familiar face, somebody, anybody she might know however vaguely from either her orthopedic elective or from third-year surgery. But she didn’t recognize anyone. With sudden resolve she went into the women’s changing room.
Getting some scrubs, she changed quickly, using an empty locker for her clothes. After tucking her moderately long hair into a cap and grabbing a surgical mask, she checked herself in the mirror. The almost-white surgical hat emphasized her olive complexion, and without the benefit of her thick hair to frame her face, she thought her youthful, angled features and slightly upturned nose made her appear younger than she was. Combined with her height, she worried she was going to stand out like a sore thumb as a first-year medical student who didn’t belong. More to conceal her identity than to be aseptic, she put on the mask.
Satisfied, she returned to the lounge. Without hesitating, for fear she would lose her nerve, as Lynn generally followed rules, she walked out of the lounge and pushed her way through the double doors into the OR suite. She had been there before on numerous occasions during her monthlong orthopedic elective and even a few times during third-year surgery, but always accompanied. She had even assisted Weaver as well as a few other surgeons to get a close-up idea of orthopedic surgery. To her, orthopedic surgery was a lot different from what Karen had suggested. It wasn’t eye surgery, to be sure, but with newer tools it was considerably more precise than it had been.
Lynn half expected that she would be challenged, but she wasn’t.She kept moving at a good clip with the belief that any hesitation on her part would be a tip-off that she was an interloper. Her destination was the PACU, and she headed directly for it. She pushed through the second set of double swinging doors as if she belonged, but then stopped a few feet inside the room.
For most people, Lynn included, the PACU was a busy, alien world of high tech, which made students feel incompetent. The patients were on elevated beds with side rails. Most of the beds were occupied. There were no dividers between the beds. Each seemingly sleeping patient had at least one nurse, many with a nursing assistant as well. Fresh bandages covered varying areas of the patients’ bodies. Clusters of intravenous containers that appeared like plastic fruit hung on the tops of metal poles. The lines snaked down to run mostly into exposed arms, although a few were central lines going into the neck. Monitors were clustered on the wall over the head of each bed, with various electronic blips tracing lines across their screens. Plastic bags hung under the beds for drainage and urine. Several of the patients had ventilators for assisted respiration. The sounds
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