Post sponsored by me finally washing and putting on the bed some new bedsheets

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    how do you play music on your phone if you’re scrubbed in? Like, can you touch your phone?

    Mohs are way less involved than most surgeries - typically the setup starts well in advance of the patient arriving, to include scrubbing in (surgical hand wash, sterile gown/glove) at which point you’re right: I can touch ONLY my sterile field, so no phone. Unless the phone is set up to use voice commands - my last phone was, but I only ever used it like twice, so I never bothered on my current one.

    Mohs procedures use like 4 instruments and only a handful of supplies, so I didn’t even start opening anything until the patient is in the room - they do all the preop consent and stuff in the room for Mohs, which takes way longer than my setup - so I have a couple minutes to help with things like taking vitals, which is when I get talking to the patient, and when this one mentioned how extremely anxious he was. Music preference was asked then, and I got it started playing immediately after. Then the gloves went on, at which point the phone is off limits.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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      12 hours ago

      That’s really interesting! Thanks for explaining. How often do you play music for your patients? I’ve never had a doctor do this, but I haven’t had a lot of procedures

      • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Almost never, cuz by the time I usually see the patient they’re a few minutes away from being unconscious, and are being dog-piled by a pit-crew of nurses and anesthesiologists. I’ll turn around for a quick hello, then return to setting up my sterile field so everything’s ready for the surgeon.

        Mohs cases are a totally different world: the case itself is super simple, so I have a lot more autonomy due to not being preoccupied with the setup, which takes all of about 30 seconds. I don’t like to just stand there waiting for the doc, so I’ll usually just butt into whatever my scope as a tech allows, which usually means taking vitals and making non-clinical interventions like tackling their anxiety by distracting them with stupid jokes or music.

        I’ve only had a couple of opportunities to do something like that in the regular OR.