learning curve might have taken a little longer otherwise.
5. Accept different strokes. Everyone has a picture preference.
It's like when you go into a TV store and look at the rows of TVs.
Some images look better than others to you and you can't imagine
why another person would like an image that doesn't appeal to you.
You can go into the OR and find that somebody has programmed the
screen with a different red balance or warm feature. You realize people
see things differently and have different settings. I've been told that I
like more of a warm feature and a warm image. Others like more of a
contrasted, sharper image. It all comes down to personal preference.
The good news: You can save each surgeon's image settings and prefer-
ences under each surgeon's name.
6. Start everybody equally. When we converted to 4K, everybody
got to use the new video equipment. We were all at the same starting
point. When we first got HD, we bought only so many pieces, but not
enough for everybody. It was a financial issue. When the HD technolo-
gy came in, the image was better and the towers were more function-
al. But only some people were getting to use the new equipment at the
time and that created some ill will among the surgeons and staff.
A surgeon would come in for a procedure and say, "Why don't I have
the new equipment?" And that would become an issue. Even if some
people were doing a basic laparoscopy, it wasn't fair to say hey, you're
not important enough to have the new technology. I saw that then and
it wasn't right.
So when we made the conversion from HD to 4K, everybody got an
opportunity to use the new equipment from the beginning. That equal-
ity was one of the aspects in making for a smoother transition.
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