The First Formal Complaint I Ever Made in the OR

When I first started traveling, I took a night-shift OR charge assignment about an hour outside NYC.

My commute was brutal — almost three hours round trip.

One afternoon, about an hour before I was supposed to leave for work, one of the clinical managers called asking if I could switch that night's shift to another day.

I explained that I couldn't. I had planned my week around the schedule and was literally getting ready to leave.

She understood, and we moved on.

A couple weeks later, I noticed they had scheduled me for four 12-hour shifts in one week instead of the three in my contract.

I brought it to the same manager. She questioned whether my contract actually specified three 12s.

I confirmed that it did and told her she could check with the director if needed.

The schedule was corrected.

Again, we moved on.

Then came the case carts.

Some nights we were busy all night — vascular, trauma, GYN, emergencies, whatever came through the doors. Other nights were quieter.

Apparently, morning staff had been complaining about items missing from some of the first-case carts.

Management's solution was to have the night charge nurse check every first-case cart in every room.

The permanent overnight nurse had already said that with everything else we were responsible for, she simply didn't have time to get through all of them.

I was running into the same problem.

There was another issue: by the time I checked a cart, it could have already been touched by three different people. I would be the fourth.

So how could I personally guarantee nothing would be missing afterward?

Then one morning, after I had just completed a 12-hour shift, the clinical manager walked in as everyone was gathering for morning huddle.

In front of the group, I heard:

"Oliver! Are ALL the case carts complete?"

I answered: "To my knowledge."

She followed with: "So nobody is going to come to me and complain that anything is missing?"

I said: "I hope not."

A couple seconds went by…

Then somewhere in the group I heard: "WHIPISH!" — you know, that imaginary sound of someone cracking a whip.

At that moment, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

I went home, documented what had been happening, wrote my first formal complaint, and sent it to my recruiter.

Interestingly, from that day forward, the dynamic completely changed.

The same manager treated me with respect. No more confrontational questioning. No more putting me on the spot in front of the team.

Mostly: "Good morning, Oliver. How are you?"

And honestly, that was all I wanted.

I wasn't trying to create conflict.

I was one of only two nurses covering nights, working charge in an unfamiliar hospital, and I was willing to work hard.

But I wasn't willing to be pushed around or publicly held accountable for things outside of my reasonable control.

There is a difference between being difficult and having boundaries.

Sometimes the most professional thing you can do is calmly make it clear where those boundaries are.

Have you ever had a moment in the OR when speaking up completely changed how someone treated you?