During Nurse’s Week 2020, we were proud to note that “not all superheroes wear capes.” This slogan rings true not only for nurses but for all healthcare workers. In the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic, we showed the whole world that healthcare workers are tougher and more resilient than they imagined. But what makes healthcare workers so great is the teamwork that helped us overcome every obstacle. When most hear the word ‘teamwork,” what comes to mind are motivational speeches, great sports teams, and business slogans. It has become somewhat of a cliché - unoriginal, overused, and commonplace. But in the operating room, the word “teamwork” is a necessary and integral part of our culture and critical to patient safety. In an environment that requires many players to be involved in a single high-stakes procedure, we rely on and embrace each other to improve our success for every case that comes before us. We are proud to carry this culture forward in every task that we perform. But when one of your own becomes the patient laying on the operating table in front of you, the stakes feel much higher.

That night, when we received the call for an emergency case, we prepped the room and gathered all hands on deck. When we received the patient in the operating room, no one left the room until all of the procedures were done. The number of team members present inside the operating suite differs depending on the procedure but mostly consists of one anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist, one or two surgeons, one scrub tech, and one nurse. But on this night there were two anesthesiologists, two anesthesia techs, two general surgeons, one vascular surgeon, two cardio-thoracic surgeons, four scrub techs, five operating nurses, two post-operative nurses, one intensive care nurse, and one perfusionist inside the operating suite. For a full six hours that we were in the room, teamwork and communication were never broken despite being in a complex and stressful environment, especially given the circumstances.

For six hours, every single professional inside that room was working against time to do everything we could for our patient. We suppressed physical exhaustion from the endless walking and standing. We suppressed the emotional burden of personally knowing our patient. We worked so hard because we knew that our patient was enduring more than whatever physical and emotional exhaustion we felt at that moment. On that night, we had one goal - to keep this patient alive no matter what because she was our friend, coworker, and a member of our family. We never wavered in our goal. There were moments when we were silently asking for a miracle. When we called for the vascular surgeon to come and help us, he instructed us on what he needed to be opened on the sterile field. Before I hung up, I asked him was there anything else he needed. He replied, “pray.” I told him that we were already doing that.

When the surgeons finally controlled the bleeding, we transfused eighty-six bags of blood to keep her hemodynamically stable throughout the procedures. We never stopped transfusing blood until the surgeons closed the incision sites. We transferred her to the intensive care unit with a heavy heart because we knew what she had been through and what she was facing ahead. We knew that it was going to be a lengthy and difficult recovery for her. From the operating room standpoint, we described that night as a success. But in reality, it was an “Oh, Sh*t!” moment based on the evidence - many empty blood bags scattered on the floor, empty instruments tray we opened, full trash bags in the corner, phone calls made, the number of staff in the room, and a number of bloody footprints all over the room and in the hallway. It was certainly an unforgettable night, and it will be with us for a long time.