Excerpt

Chapter Nine

Managing the Beast

“We all make choices but in the end, the choices make us.”

Andrew Ryan

You need to keep control Peta. Trust no one.

Like a diligent student, I would jump right on, holding that line white knuckle tight. I failed to realise that by not delegating and offering my trust to the team, I was sabotaging the likelihood of ever receiving any in return.

The masked surgeons aren’t forgiving. If I’m not there, they will think I don’t care. I can’t let them down.

The days my mobile phone rang incessantly made me feel on top of the world. Each call, a shot of adrenalin that made me feel needed. I loved the sound of that ping, wished for it even. All of that hard work and patience was paying off. The bookings were coming, fast. A little too fast. Timeslots were being double booked, triple booked, some days, we had 10 surgeries to juggle. 10 kits of equipment, 10 surgeries needing someone in the room, 10 timetables changing with the demands of the day and 10 surgeons wanting equal attention.

There was one of me, only three in our team and 24 hours in a day.

Be careful what you wish for.

The Director’s words from my job interview rang in my ears as I looked at a busy Thursday in the diary wondering how the heck I was going to manage it.

I’d do the best I could, making decisions based on the information I had at the time, contingency planning for as many possible scenarios my anxious brain could concoct. Just as I thought I had a handle of it all, another worse- case scenario thought storm would whip up in my brain like a sudden severe weather pattern. In this instance, it was a bloody god send - being able to sniff out risk was pretty damn useful when the stakes were high.

Maybe we really are a team? If I want to maintain control I have to stay ahead of the game. I need to anticipate every move and make sure there’s no unwanted surprises. Least of all for the surgeons.

Managing expectations was the saviour to my sanity. I learnt it was much more pleasant to juggle a circus act of expectations, than it was to deal with the atomic consequences of dishing something up to a masked surgeon they weren’t prepared for.

I was yet to meet a surgeon who appreciated any surprise, least of all an unwanted one. Sending a colleague they didn’t know, to cover a case without advance notice, had the potential to set everyone up for a rough day. My colleague’s competence was rarely in question, it was more that if I did so, I was forcing the surgeon to work with someone they didn’t know and trust. Regardless of how thorough the handover, I constantly felt I was letting them down.

It was a tough predicament to avoid as the business grew.

Overnight, it felt like I went from running a suburban hobby farm to a monstrous global export cattle station, with the flurry of logistical activity to match. I had equipment kits flying all over Australia, passing each other in the night sky as I tried to keep up with demand.

There were days I just drowned in decisions. Overwhelmed by the volume of information I was processing, petrified I would succumb to the perfectly normal human tendency of forgetting. Overlooking the smallest detail could have seismic consequences, particularly when there was a patient involved.

“I’ll have a six and a half by 50mm monoaxial screw” a masked surgeon said during a case. I froze in my tracks.

“Sorry doctor, did you say monoaxial?” I asked.

“Yes, I always use mono’s in trauma cases.” He replied in a tone that screamed

“Surely you know this,” as the nursing staff scrambled to see what other sterile systems they had on hand.

I didn’t send the monoaxial screws.

In my naivety, I hadn’t even thought to ask. Needless to say, that early misstep tainted my reputation with that surgeon for my entire career.

“I don’t think she has what it takes,” he told a senior colleague of mine early on.

When someone in the logistical team who I was relying on to perform, disagreed, or pushed back on my requests, I felt the anger boil inside of me.

“Please make this easy. Don’t tell me we can’t,” I pleaded.

An excerpt from My Beautiful Mess - living through burnout & rediscovering me

by Peta Sitcheff