Melissa McFarland
December 2019
Melissa
Mcfarland
,
RN
OR
Torrance Memorial Medical Center
Melissa coordinated with me and already took the initiative to pick up the patient from the ER to facilitate expediency, and we started the case in a timely fashion, which was not only great for patient care but also for the surgeon.
I am an anesthesiologist and recently, the circulating nurse Melissa really impressed me by doing such an excellent job during an exceptionally long day. I have worked with Melissa many times and she is very reliable, consistent, efficient, and experienced doing plastics cases. Whenever I am working with Melissa, she always has the necessary equipment ready for both the surgeon and anesthesiologist and is quite familiar with each surgeon's specific preferences that she works with. She does a wonderful job at keeping the surgeons happy and keeping the patient at ease, which keeps the room in good spirits and assists in patient care.
One day, I was very fortunate to work with Melissa and had the pleasure of observing her in a different light, doing various non-plastic cases. We both had quite a long day of continuous cases, starting at 0700, which culminated into a long organ harvest starting at 1950 and finishing around 0400 or so (the next day) for Melissa. (I finished my anesthetic portion for the organ harvest around midnight.) I was later notified about an urgent GYN case around 0430 or 0500. Upon arriving at the hospital within the 30 min window, Melissa coordinated with me and already took the initiative to pick up the patient from the ER to facilitate expediency, and we started the case in a timely fashion, which was not only great for patient care (patient was bleeding) but also for the surgeon who was ready to go, as well as for the rest of the team who already had a labor-intensive 24-hour call shift. Melissa also did very well in the organ harvest case, which in fact was the least straightforward organ harvest case I've done. The surgeons divided the liver before completely resecting it - and prior to clamping the aorta - which caused a lot of blood loss and vital signs fluctuations. I needed to resuscitate the patient with more fluids than usual, even blood products, and multiple pressers, and Melissa was adept at getting anything I needed (albumin, blood products, setting up blood tubing as I did not have an anesthesia tech at that time) in a very timely manner to ensure the integrity of the organs, while also tending to the multiple surgeons. She had to work with a whole host of surgeons whom none of us were familiar with, and I thought she did an exceptional job at tending to various tasks, and for various surgical personalities, in a flexible and expedient manner. She worked very hard that day and proved to be energetic until the very end.
One day, I was very fortunate to work with Melissa and had the pleasure of observing her in a different light, doing various non-plastic cases. We both had quite a long day of continuous cases, starting at 0700, which culminated into a long organ harvest starting at 1950 and finishing around 0400 or so (the next day) for Melissa. (I finished my anesthetic portion for the organ harvest around midnight.) I was later notified about an urgent GYN case around 0430 or 0500. Upon arriving at the hospital within the 30 min window, Melissa coordinated with me and already took the initiative to pick up the patient from the ER to facilitate expediency, and we started the case in a timely fashion, which was not only great for patient care (patient was bleeding) but also for the surgeon who was ready to go, as well as for the rest of the team who already had a labor-intensive 24-hour call shift. Melissa also did very well in the organ harvest case, which in fact was the least straightforward organ harvest case I've done. The surgeons divided the liver before completely resecting it - and prior to clamping the aorta - which caused a lot of blood loss and vital signs fluctuations. I needed to resuscitate the patient with more fluids than usual, even blood products, and multiple pressers, and Melissa was adept at getting anything I needed (albumin, blood products, setting up blood tubing as I did not have an anesthesia tech at that time) in a very timely manner to ensure the integrity of the organs, while also tending to the multiple surgeons. She had to work with a whole host of surgeons whom none of us were familiar with, and I thought she did an exceptional job at tending to various tasks, and for various surgical personalities, in a flexible and expedient manner. She worked very hard that day and proved to be energetic until the very end.