Adventures in Day Surgery
Life brings surprises. Challenges come. Adventures await.
Take Day Surgery. Please!
* * *
My appointment was at 10 AM. The corridor signs were well-marked, and we soon saw the entrance. In the waiting room, the number-dispenser was out of order. We entered another door and found a secretary.
“How can I help you?”
“I have an appointment at 10.”
“Name?” She pored over papers on her desk, but could not find me. “What kind of surgery?”
“Hand.”
“Oh. Hand is across the hall. You will see the sign: “DAY SURGERY–Eynayim.”
Eynayim of course means “Eyes.” I pointed this out.
“That’s where they do hands,” she explained. Good to know.
We crossed the hall and saw the sign for DAY SURGERY- EYES. Inside was a functional number dispenser. Shortly, my number was called. The electric door opened, and I entered.
“Name?” asked the secretary. I told her. She scanned her papers but could not find it. ”What kind of surgery?” “Hand.” “For hand you go up to the 5th floor,” she said, then promptly caught herself. “Wait a moment,” she said. “Ah, I see. We are at Day Surgery B. You need to be across the hall at Day Surgery A.”
“I just came from there,” I said. “They told me to come here.” “Well,” she said, “you just go right back and tell them that the secretary from here told you to go there!“
We crossed the hall and found the first secretary. “Excuse me,” I said, “but across the hall, they told me to come back here.”
“Name?” I told her. She looked down at her papers. “Sorry,” she mumbled to her desk, “I missed it.” She printed out some papers and some stickers with numbers on them and handed them to me, motioning me to the right. Suddenly hand surgery was on this side after all.
They say that Artificial Intelligence makes things up. So, it seems, does regular intelligence. If that’s the right word.
* * *
At a desk I found a nurse.
“Name?” she asked. I told her. Then she mumbled something I could not understand. When I looked blank, she said, “English? You are having any allergies?”
Twenty years ago, in The Checklist Manifesto, the surgeon Atul Gawande argued that patient safety can benefit not just from sophisticated expertise but from mind-numbing routine. Want to be sure not to operate on the wrong person? Have eight different people ask, “What is your name? ID number? (Or date of birth.)
What Gawande may not have appreciated is that people asked to recite and repeat ritualized formulas tend to talk fast and mumble. He might have noticed that if he spent more time at early-morning shacharit minyanim.
I thought my Hebrew had come along a bit. Perhaps it has, but when I hear Israelis talk with their normal tone and speed, even words I know bounce right off my frontal lobes, leaving my eyes blank and my mouth open. For an oleh, social ineptitude comes with a warranty that lasts as long as you own your brain.
* * *
Placed in a cubicle, I undressed, put on a gown, and lay back. There I stayed for four hours.
Looking around, I found myself in a strange and busy new setting. People I didn’t know wearing uniforms I did not recognize darted here and there to do things I could not fathom, following rules I had not been taught. I felt like Alice, though not in Wonderland.
Eventually the surgeon came by. He apologized for the delay and explained that my procedure would start when the operating room became free. He could not be sure when that would be. Sooner or later….
* * *
Later, when it got to be sooner, they took me to the OR. My wife was told to “take everything,” including my clothing, now stowed under my gurney. Later they called her and said, “Please come and take your husband’s clothes.” “I have them on my lap,” she replied. “But they’re still here…Wait, what cubicle was he in?” “9,” she said. “Oh, sorry. These clothes are in 8.”
* * *
The procedure took half an hour. Anesthesia was local, so I stayed awake. Afterwards they wheeled me back to the room I’d waited in. The nurse came by to tell me that I could eat something. “There are soup and sandwiches in the kitchenette,” she said. How delightful–a country where you can not just drink the juice but eat the snacks!
My wife brought me a small, rock-hard roll with a forlorn piece of white cheese plastered to the bottom half. I downed the cheese. The nurse returned. “I guess you can’t eat the roll,” she said, then added, “After all, there’s no place here for netilat yadayim.”
You never know when to expect religious guidance. I’ve had restaurant workers on lunch break—none of whom wore a kippa–call out to me, as I wandered in search of a washing station, “The rolls are mezonot!”
Can your country do that?
* * *
Now at least I know why they call it “Day Surgery.” No matter what time it is called for or how long the procedure takes, better plan to spend the day.
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