Insights from the Other Side by Lori Mangum
The operating room is a curious place. Surgical teams move together in harmony through preparations for the procedure while chatting with one another as a bed is wheeled into the room. The person on the bed is a piece of the production, but they don’ t know the dance. They are moved from the portable hospital bed to the surgical table. Cushions are placed strategically to ensure security and appropriate positioning for the operation. An armboard extends from the table and an unknown hand moves them into position, attaching something new to the IV line. Equipment is rolled into place. Faces blur under the bright lights. Surrounded by strangers, the patient submits, hoping all goes as planned, scared that it may not. The anesthesiologist appears, assuring them that they are in good hands, tells them to count to ten and enjoy the nap. The team moves into position for the operation. It is likely one of dozens they’ ll complete that week. There is laughter and small talk among them as if their actions are the most normal things in the world – because they are, for them. As the beeps of the machines fade away and the world goes dark, the patient is the only one uncertain.
There are two sides of the table.
Prior to my Wear the White Coat experience, I’ d been in an operating room 16 times, with 12 surgeries during my cancer journey, a hysteroscopic myomectomy, an ovarian cystectomy, an abdominal myomectomy and an arthroscopic rotator cuff repair with distal clavicle resection. The OR was very familiar, but from a limited point of view. On my first shadow shift of the program, the curtain was lifted and I had the privilege of seeing what happens after the propofol push.
I woke up at 5:00 a. m. excited to shadow Dr. Kate Williams, attending anesthesiologist at UofL Hospital. I first met Dr. Williams a few weeks prior at the opening breakfast for program participants and physician preceptors. It was immediately obvious that she loved her job. As she placed the white coat on me, she joked that she hadn’ t worn her
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