Good Reads: Operating Room Etiquette; Rudeness at the Local Pharmacy; the New Yorker & Checklists in the ICU

Terry at Counting Sheep posted a very intriguing list of the rules of operating room etiquette for staff and patients. Did you know that sleeping patients have the right of way. Stretcher traffic in hallways dictates that the anesthetized patient should always go first? Did you know that as the anesthesia lightens and the patient awakens at the end of the case, all music and extraneous conversations and noise come to an end, to enhance a smooth and quiet wakeup and transition for the patient? And that nothing to eat or drink after midnight on the night before your surgery includes lozenges, juice, candy, gum, and coffee with or without cream.

Sandy at Fighting Fatigue posted a disturbing, but too common, story about how a pharmacist demeaned her when she went to fill her prescription for her pain pills.

And check out the article by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker about a crusade to improve the safety of intensive care through the use of something low tech and ordinary -- checklists.