NEW YORK, NY – Disco isn’t dead, yet. One of the last remaining icons of the great disco movement in NYC still remains in St. Jude’s Operating Room #4.
“This OR was and still is the grooviest OR in the country,” Dr. Stevens told reporters. “It will be sad to see it go, but it has been so hard to clean.”
OR 4 has the original shag carpeting in place on the walls and floor. Room turnovers have reached up to 2 hours in just trying to clean the carpet. A faded Bee Gees poster still hangs on the wall with years of bodily fluids imprinted on it.
“It is so hard to get blood out of carpet and walls, especially shag carpet. Eventually you have to just tear it out.”
In OR 4’s heyday, surgeons would wear platform shoes, gold chains, and hair netting that wouldn’t compromise their fly hairdo. Now what remains is a smelly shag carpet that reminds providers of a better time.
Disco balls still hang from the ceiling, however laparoscopic cases were becoming more and more difficult with all the rotating lights. In addition, the red and blue lava lights provide such poor lighting for most surgeries
Nurses have complained for years regarding the difficulty of pushing a gurney into the room. Not only are gurneys hard to push over the shag carpet, but the OR bed is still a fully functioning water bed.
“It is very difficult to slide the patient over onto a water bed,” said OR nurse Ken Planters. “Especially with our obese population, they always create big waves and almost fall off the bed. It is just too hard to do surgery on water beds these days.”
“I sure am going to miss room 4. I might have to buy a Pet Rock to help console me,” said Stevens.
Surprisingly, the Joint Commission has been silent on the issue, but rather wants to focus on labeling of all syringes with dates, times, concentrations, and amount of drug added. Oh yes, and make sure that you know where your MSDS books are too.
