By KAREN SIBERT, MD

Is it always wrong for a surgeon to book cases that will be done in two operating rooms during the same timeframe?

If you’ve paid much attention to the overheated commentary on social media since the Boston Globe published its investigative report, “Clash in the name of care“, you might easily conclude that the surgeon who runs two rooms ought to be drawn and quartered, or at least stripped of his or her medical license.

John Mandrola, MD, a Kentucky cardiologist who I’ll bet doesn’t spend a lot of time in operating rooms, weighed in on Medscape with a post called “The Wrongness of a Doctor Being in Two Places at Once“, accusing surgeons of hubris and greed.

Respectfully, I disagree.

The Globe’s story tells the dramatic tale of how a prominent surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital often scheduled two difficult spine operations at the same time. According to the Globe’s reporters, the surgeon typically moved back and forth between two operating rooms, performing key parts of each procedure but delegating some of the work to residents or fellows in training.

Continue reading…

By KAREN SIBERT, MD

I admit, I was taken aback at the headline in the Houston Press:

“Going Under: What Can Happen if your anesthesiologist leaves the room during an operation.”

The curious reader is bound to wonder why the anesthesiologist would leave the operating room in the first place.

Of course, reporter Dianna Wray explains that in many hospitals, one physician anesthesiologist often supervises multiple cases staffed by nurse anesthetists. This model of care is called the “anesthesia care team“, and has a very long record of safe practice in nearly all major hospitals in the United States. Typically, the anesthesiologist makes rounds from one operating room to the next, checking on each case frequently, just as an internal medicine physician would round on patients in the hospital who are being monitored by their nurses.

Continue reading…