A faculty member does not have to be a program director to be concerned about the influx of communications technology into the O.R. Elsewhere in this NEWSLETTER, Drs. Jai Mehta and Peter Killoran address “Anesthesia and Mobile Technology: ‘Meaningful Use’ of Small Screens.” They rightly discuss the issues of “Distraction, Disruption and Interruption.”
Let’s look back to 1989, the year I completed my anesthesiology residency. Even then, there were faculty who were uneasy with resident distractions in the O.R. For those faculty, it was inappropriate for a resident to be doing anything in the O.R. other than taking care of a given patient. Thus, the resident was to commit his or her entire focus to that patient. In the view of these faculty, and perhaps rightly so, we, as residents – as learners – should be devoting our entire concentration to the minute- by-minute, even second-by-second, management of a...
