Moving From a Frustrating Case to a Satisfying One

The best way to make use of operating room time, particularly in an specialty where operating days are limited to one or two (or three) a week, is to schedule all cases at that same time. Then you spend the morning going straight from one case into the next, hopefully getting yourself into a good routine. But as a learning surgeon, the inter-case variability may be significant.

One morning I was doing a cataract case during which it seemed like everything became ten times more complicated than they needed to be. Ultimately, the patient did just fine and in the end the surgery could easily be considered a success. But the path to that end was very rocky and difficult. This is never how you want to start the day; it seems to set everything else off pace and it can be very difficult to get back into a good rhythm.

Then my second case came rolled into the operating room. Somehow, things went just splendid - if not a bit longer than what an experienced cataract surgeon may take. Suddenly, it seemed as though the day was going to go okay.