Title Byline
EDITOR'S PAGE
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O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4
Hostility: Healthcare's Huge Cultural Problem
It's truly sad when your reward for sharing is petty lateral violence.
Y
ou may recall the ring-removal
tip in our September issue
("Ideas That Work," page 12).
Genevieve Holody, RN, a PACU nurse
and educator at the Buffalo Surgery
Center in Amherst, N.Y., shared the
practical pearl along with some great
photos. Maybe it was news to you,
maybe it wasn't: Slide a rubber tourni-
quet and a little lubricant under a
stubborn ring, and it slides right off.
"It saves a lot of awkward cuts and
your patients will love you for saving
that very sentimental piece of jewel-
ry," wrote Ms. Holody, 45, a nurse for
23 years.
Like cockroaches, the critics came crawling out of the woodwork
soon after we published her 1-paragraph tip. Lest we forget the reputa-
tion that nursing has for eating its young, Ms. Holody was the victim of
ugly cyberbullying from our readers. She says she received 14 e-mails
to her work account dismissing her idea as neither new nor novel —
"Tourniquets? No. We use shoe strings or dental floss." — and a couple
of comments on our website that reek of one-upmanship. "New, it is
not. Also it is definitely not absolutely foolproof," read one. "Windex
works just as well," read another.
If this is the thanks you get for sharing, Ms. Holody, who considered
changing her work e-mail address, doesn't plan to stick her neck out
again anytime soon.
