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Editor's note: Every day, perioperative nurses are faced with challenging situations that require personal strength and moral courage to address. These events often go unnoticed by others. The new Speaking Up: Voices from the OR column is a bimonthly column whose aim is to recognize and celebrate perioperative nurses and other surgical team members who speak up and take action as patient advocates in the hopes that these individuals will serve as examples for other nurses to emulate. The column coordinator is Georgia DinndorfHogenson, PhD, RN, CNOR, assistant professor, College of St Benedict and St John's University, St Joseph, MN.
Perioperative nurses have experienced sentinel events during surgery. These sentinel events can lead to sleepless nights, doubts about continuing a career in nursing, stigma from peers, and other negative consequences. Wrong-site surgery is a sentinel event that can lead to these issues for perioperative nurses. The following is the story of a charge nurse who used the ethical component veracity (ie, truthfulness, honesty)1 to confront an ethical issue that required moral courage to address. The name of the OR charge nurse has been changed to protect her privacy.
THE SITUATION
Bev has been a perioperative nurse for more than 18 years. She is a full-time charge nurse at a large, Level I regional trauma center that includes more than 25 ORs and interventional rooms. The following is a detailed account of the events that occurred regarding an instance of wrong-site surgery.
Bev was in charge and had just enough available staff members to cover breaks and lunches. During the late morning, she overheard the surgery-scheduling secretary take a call from one of the RN circulators. The RN circulator requested that the secretary add a vertebral level to the schedule for the cervical disc fusion that was already underway in one of the ORs. Although this seemed unusual, Bev did not seek to find out details at the time. The call did raise a red flag for her because it is uncommon to add a level after a procedure has begun without the surgeon speaking with the family first.
Approximately 30 minutes...