Pie in Her Face

In order to avoid omissions and errors, the procedure for admitting a patient to the operating room is often repetitious, tedious, and annoying to the patient – who is stressed just by being there. However it has to be done: a thorough checklist of questions and procedures must be completed on every patient.

One morning, one of our OR nurses was admitting a 17-year-old. Completing the final step of the checklist, she asked: "Did you have breakfast this morning?" He answered, "No", and went on to say that he "never" ate breakfast. Signing his chart, she pushed his stretcher to the OR – to an anesthetist, who was not in a very amicable frame of mine on that particular morning, because his car had quit on him.

Just as the surgeon entered the room, the anesthetist asked his question: "When did you last eat or drink?" The young man replied, "Well, I had lemon pie and a glass of milk around five o'clock this morning."

Silence descended over the OR. Then the nurse who had asked him about breakfast walked over and barked: "You told me you didn't eat breakfast, didn't you!?"

"Yeah, I didn't eat breakfast, I just got up and had a snack in the middle of the night," the young man responded.

The anesthetist blew up, the surgery was cancelled, and the patient went off to get himself rebooked.

After that day the question was always: "When did you last eat or drink?"

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