A Sales Rep's View of OR Bullying
Re: "Staring Down OR Bullies" (September, page 38). Bullying is serious, and it's not funny, but I can't help laughing a little while reading your excellent article. As sales reps in the OR, we bear witness to this on occasion, mostly surgeon-to-nurse bullying, as you mentioned. You described a "hierarchy" of male surgeons at the top and female nurses at the bottom. What you left out is that somewhere below the bottom of this hierarchy is the sales rep, male or female. We often feel the repercussions of the frustrated nurse, who was just unfairly blistered by the surgeon. We all know what rolls downhill, and sometimes it's the sales rep, not the nurse at the very bottom. Still, 99 percent of our interactions with OR staff are very pleasant, and their patient care advocacy is critical to the adoption of our product and therapy. Since we rarely see our co-workers at our own company, and although we are visitors in the OR, we consider the OR nurses in our territories our co-workers and in many cases our friends.

Joe Terry
Lone Star Region Vice President
I-Flow Corporation
joeterry@aggienetwork.com