“I think I’ll hire you because you kept me entertained the best during surgery.” That was my “You’re hired” speech from the plastic surgeon whom I had been interviewing with all morning in the operating room located in the rear of his office. I was raised to trust those in respected positions of authority such as teachers, police officers, and doctors. I grew up feeling like they were immune to the social ravages of the rest of society. When good or bad were the only 2 decisions, they would surely always choose right. Right? Not really. As an adult, I quickly learned the importance of criminal background searches.
I was about 22 at the time and had just finished surgical technology school after a year of studying and internship. I had put my resume out there and was thrilled when I was invited to assist in surgery that Saturday morning. I walked in and was immediately tasked with mixing the patient’s medications that were to be injected through his I.V. during surgery. I told the doctor that I was taught never to medicate patients and was therefore not taught to mix meds. The surgeon scoffed at me and said that all of his techs did it and if I got hired, I’d be mixing his meds every time. Warning lights were starting to blink.
The next red flag was that I was interviewing with a Registered Nurse and another more experienced Surgical Tech. I figured they were shoe-ins for the job due to their years of experience. The doctor asked us personal questions throughout the surgery, made crude jokes and challenged us to tell some and see which of us was most entertaining. He rationalized that since he would be spending a great deal of time with his assistant, he preferred someone he could laugh with. Blinking red caution lights are flashing even faster now.
After surgery, he dismissed the RN and the other Surgical Tech and left me to tend to the patient while he was in his office on the phone with his girlfriend. He told me to monitor the patient’s blood oxygen and if it stayed at a good level, I could remove his I.V. Okay, number 1, I had never been trained to know what range of blood oxygen was even safe and number 2, I was taught to never mess with the patient’s I.V. or use needles on them. Then, it got really interesting when the patient started to choke on his blood (he had a nose job) and was still under the influence of the anesthesia! I frantically called to the doctor (it took him 3 times to annoyingly answer me) and he yelled at me to suction him out and try to wake him up. He didn’t get off the phone…
Red lights are blaring so brightly that I can hardly see anything else in the room.
After all that, he offered me $10 an hour and told me he wouldn’t pay me any more because I still had a long way to go with my skill set. I ran from that office as fast as my legs would carry me! And wouldn’t you know that about 5 years later I heard about my “friend” in the news. The Orange County Register reported that he had been arrested due to multiple counts of medical malpractice under an assumed name (I didn’t see that one coming). The bottom line is that when medical facilities hire people, they must make certain that their employees have a clean record! Utilize an employment screening service like Accu-Screen who specializes in criminal background searches, drug testing, and license verification to name a few. I could have been arrested along with that doctor for medical malpractice if I had been too naïve to see the warning lights from a mile away.
