OUR CULTURE OF SAFETY
Board-certified MD Anesthesia Care
All major surgical procedures performed at The Plastic Surgery Center are conducted under anesthesia provided by an experienced, board-certified MD anesthesiologist. Your anesthesia MD will evaluate you prior to surgery, accompany you to the O.R., remain with you throughout the entire surgical procedure, and will then accompany you to the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (the PACU, aka the recovery room). Your anesthesia MD will remain on site until you have reached the point of recovery where continuous monitoring of vital signs is no longer required and you are close to being ready for discharge from The Plastic Surgery Center.
Our MD anesthesiologists are part of the Duke Private Diagnostic Clinic. Prior to the opening of The Plastic Surgery Center, surgical procedures were performed at hospital-based or hospital-affiliated surgery centers, including Rex Healthcare, WakeMed, Duke Raleigh Hospital and North Carolina Specialty Hospital. From the anesthesiologists practicing at these prominent hospitals, a particular group of especially qualified physicians was asked to provide anesthesia care for patients at The Plastic Surgery Center.
‘One on one’ MD anesthesia care, as in one anesthesiologist taking care of just one patient, rarely occurs in the inpatient hospital O.R. or ambulatory surgery center O.R. environment. In those settings, a CRNA (clinical registered nurse anesthetist) is usually the primary anesthesia care provider, and one anesthesiologist will supervise multiple CRNAs working in multiple operating rooms. In many office-based cosmetic surgery centers, a CRNA is the solo anesthesia care provider and there is no MD anesthesiologist on site.
At The Plastic Surgery Center you have the exclusive attention of a talented MD anesthesiologist who is experienced with office-based cosmetic plastic surgery. Our anesthesiologists are highly skilled at providing patients with both peace of mind and with an anesthesia experience that is as pleasant as possible. This includes doing our utmost to send patients home with a clear head, with little to no pain and without nausea and other potential post-anesthesia side effects.
Our decision to employ MD anesthesiologists as our anesthesia care providers is based on a simple question: what would you want ideally for your loved one if they were the patient? The answer in this instance is, of course, an MD anesthesiologist. You want the person with the most extensive and up-to-date training and experience. Period.
This is the question we asked ourselves when designing and equipping The Plastic Surgery Center, when interviewing and hiring our staff, when developing our policies and procedures. And that we continue to ask ourselves with every decision we make.
Surgery Center Staff
The staff of The Plastic Surgery Center consists of a Clinical Director (Registered Nurse), a preoperative and postoperative care specialist (Nurse Practitioner), circulating nurses (RNs who participate in the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative care of surgical patients), certified surgical technicians (CSTs), a certified sterile processing technician (CSPT) and overnight observation nurses (RNs). Each of our staff members was hand-picked by Dr. Law.
An advantage of holding surgical privileges and working at several surgery centers in the Triangle area over a twelve-year period is the opportunity to work with a large number of surgical professionals, some of whom we have hired as TPSC staff members. Our primary Certified Surgical Technician, for example, worked with Dr. Law on a weekly basis for over four years at North Carolina Specialty Hospital.
All staff members participate in regular training sessions and drills on all aspects of surgery center operations including emergency protocols. All staff maintain Basic Life Support (BLS) certification and all nursing staff maintain Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) certification. Every staff member must meet and document the Continuing Education requirements for their particular degree or certification. And all participate in the continual evaluation and updating of our patient care Policies and Procedures.
We have assembled a team of warm and talented individuals who consider it their pleasure and privilege to provide the safest possible care for cosmetic surgery patients in this special environment. We have one operating room, so we provide surgical care one patient at a time. Our staff enjoys giving each patient the ‘celebrity treatment’ (including the ones that are), which includes their complete and undivided attention from the time each patient arrives to the time that they are discharged from The Plastic Surgery Center recovery area.
