“How much longer?” anesthesia will ask. “Only about an hour or so,” a typical surgeon might answer. Then anesthesia is forced to ask themselves, “Does that mean 2 hours? Maybe longer? Maybe shorter? Are they including closing time?” Who really knows, surgeon time is just a complete mystery. It’s as if they work on their own clock and it only makes sense to them.
Until now that is. A new surgical app called Real Surgeon Clock will be available for Apple products next month, with an Android app soon to follow.
The app is surgeon specialty specific, and even trends your surgeon over time to give you even greater accuracy. Putting it to use is easy, as it simply requires your surgeon’s specialty, their approximate age, where they did residency, surgery start time, surgeon’s favorite color, day of the week, temperature outside, time of day, surgeon’s shoe size, will medical students be closing at the end, and how long the surgeon reports is left in the case.
“Real Surgeon Clock has helped me emerge at just the right time EVERY time!” reports Dr. Claude McLandan, a neuroanesthesia attending at Springfield hospital. The OR staff beta tested the app and fell in love right away. “Over a matter of a few days it predicted the remaining time within 5 minutes for all the residents and staff I work with,” said Dr. McLandan. “It’s a game changer, and so easy to use.” Springfield hospital found it was far easier to schedule the day and staff needs with the new app.
The new app has been met with tremendous enthusiasm by anesthesia providers, with only some minor pushback from surgeons. “Seems like a good idea in theory,” says cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. John Lange with a troubled expression, “but the truth is it fundamentally bothers me. I don’t like to be predictable. And further,” he added, “sometimes I like to just mess with anesthesia.”
A sample below shows the input and output of a typical case.
Liver Transplant
Early 50s
Hopkins
6.76 hours ago
Blue
Tuesday
43 degrees
Afternoon
Size 11
Yes
1.5 hours
Actual Time Left: 3.45 hours
Currently in the works are similar apps with the same principles: Turnover Time Clock, Anesthesia MAFAT Clock, and the very anticipated Frozen Pathology Result Clock.
