In January 2008, a facility leak-tested an endoscope and identified a leak in the bending rubber of a colonoscope after a procedure. Due to time constraints, the colonoscope was not processed and was packaged for delivery to the manufacturer for repair. That’s when things went from bad to worse."It was (foolishly) hung in the endoscope cabinet with clean and well-functioning ...

Disposing of liquid waste is a task that every facility must perform with an eye toward efficiency and cost effectiveness while protecting healthcare workers (HCWs) from exposure to potentially infectious agents. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) defines regulated waste as “liquid or semi-liquid blood or other potentially infectious materials; contaminated items that would release blood or other ...

When Nurses and Doctors Become Patients  By Allan Lohaus, MD Beyond the myth that nurses and doctors are the worst patients are the realities of how we experience personal and family illness.  Being a seasoned obstetrician and gynecologic surgeon, I knew medicine well from the clinician’s side of the bed rails. However, three days after my abdominal surgery, I ...

Time to Make a Choice By Patricia L. Raymond, MD, FACP, FACG Often, I write amusing EndoNurse essays. Warning: This ain’t one of them. I’ll assign blame for this rant to editor Kathy Dix — she wound me up and let me go, which I believe to be part of an editor’s job description. People in healthcare sometimes have ...

Patients, Not “Customers” By James G. Hutton, PhD Since the 1960’s, about the time President Kennedy unveiled his “Consumer Bill of Rights,” the idea of being a “customer” has been sacred in America. But it’s time to abandon our faith in the power of consumerism. The United States has become such a culture of consumption that consumerism is now ...