The Ribcracker Suite

One of the things I found fascinating about my dad's recent surgery is the chasm of perceived competency between the various people at the hospital. For example, the surgeon is supposedly "one of the foremost minimally invasive cardiac surgeons". I'm not even sure exactly what that means but it sounds like he was nominated for a Medical Academy Award but lost to the Meryl Streep of surgeons. Anyway, it's not that meaningful since my dad needed regular open-heart surgery (the "crack those ribs, stop that heart" kind) because one of the arteries that needed bypassing would have been inaccessible using the the other method.

I also like that, as long as they had his ribs akimbo, they'd fix his atrial fibrillation too (using the Maze procedure). But best of all, since they needed a leg vein for part of the bypass, they actually let my dad pick one to use. "Got any veins you don't like?" It's kind of like picking your lobster out of a tank. No happy ending was offered.

Back to my original point, the surgeon seemed quite competent. The day ICU nurse also seemed to know what she was doing. Compare that to the last morning in a regular room. Four different nurses/assistants came in in a span of 45 minutes. Two checked his vitals within minutes of each other. One brought a prescription with the wrong name on it. One came in, smiled, and left. I think she was in the wrong room. She had a thermometer behind her ear.

Some asshole got her pencil.