The Nuclear Way - Human Performance

Human Performance is a thing and a real thing in our industry. But in side conversation, not everyone agrees with this and the importance of procedural adherence. “Look at other industries”, they say! So I’m going to use a very unpleasant experience from today as an example. Today, I was “fortunate” to find myself at the dentist having a re-root canal and if any of you have gone through this, you will understand that this is not pleasant.

This procedure is not performed by a regular dentist, but rather an Endodontist. I arrived about 20 minutes early for my appointment and was presented with a well-oiled operation up close and personal. All facets of this specialist machine work seamlessly, from reception, to procedure and to checkout. Each person wears an audio pack to make sure they can be reached and the patients are processed with ease and as little discomfort as possible – impressive. But what was even more impressive was the procedure itself. The endodontist and his assistant worked seamlessly together through the whole process. They barely needed to speak to each other – when he reached for a tool it was there, when he looked for material it was there. They didn’t backtrack or redo – it was like a dance. I was so amazed that after the procedure, I thanked them and told them I had not seen anything like this before. 

After this experience, I thought to myself – wow, they did all that through training and no procedures and it was flawless. So do we need to go through all the effort we do in our industry? Do we need circle/slash, procedural adherence, etc? What do you think??

….

We ABSOLUTELY need it (and needed in the dental industry as well!). You see, if you look at my beginning paragraph – this was a re-root canal and the first dentist actual had made a human performance error that required me to go to the specialist today. If they had followed the process properly – I wouldn’t be getting this unnecessary treatment with unnecessary X-Rays today.

Human Performance is more than a thing; it needs to be ingrained in our work practice. We are fortunate to be working in a wonderful industry and it’s up to us to make sure we do things safely, effectively and efficiently. Thank you!