{"id":3958,"date":"2010-10-18T15:54:34","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T19:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?p=3958"},"modified":"2011-07-19T17:45:26","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T21:45:26","slug":"beware-of-um","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2010\/10\/18\/beware-of-um\/","title":{"rendered":"“Um”"},"content":{"rendered":"

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from\u00a0Dr. Westby Fisher, an electrophysiologist practicing at\u00a0NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at\u00a0University of Chicago\u2019s Pritzker School of Medicine.\u00a0This piece originally appeared on his blog, <\/em>Dr. Wes.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

I never like to hear “Um…” from nurses or industry representatives during surgical procedures.<\/p>\n

Most people think that the worst thing you could hear while undergoing a surgical procedure is “Oops…” or “Sh*t”, but I would have to politely disagree.<\/p>\n

You see, people working in EP labs and operating rooms never want to sound hysterical if they’ve recognized a problem during a surgical procedure. To do so might startle the operating physician and make them tense or angry. Instruments have flown for less.<\/p>\n

So nurses and industry representatives are carefully trained to first say “Um…”<\/p>\n

“Um, is his lead impedance always so high?”<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>“Um, is his blood pressure always 60 systolic?”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Um, you wouldn’t have connected the atrial lead in the ventricular port and the ventricular lead in the atrial port, would you?”<\/em><\/p>\n

But savvy surgeons recognize “Um” and act quickly, politely stating the obvious:<\/p>\n

“High impedance? Boy, those old leads don’t hold up like the newer ones. Looks like we’ll be placing a new one…”<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>“Sixty? What do you expect when they’ve been NPO all night? Could we start some dopamine, please?”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Leads reversed? Just making sure you were awake…”<\/em><\/p>\n

So beware of “Um” and for surgeons, be prepared to act accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from\u00a0Dr. Westby Fisher, an electrophysiologist practicing at\u00a0NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at\u00a0University of Chicago\u2019s Pritzker School of Medicine.\u00a0This piece originally appeared on his blog, Dr. Wes. I never like to hear “Um…” from nurses or industry representatives during surgical procedures. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cardiac-surgery","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}