Cape Hospital to offer behind-the-scenes tours
The community will be given the chance to explore the operating rooms and surgical wing of Cape Coral Hospital on Sunday in an annual behind-the-scenes tour and interactive expo.
From 1-4 p.m., the surgical wing will open its doors and allow the community to examine equipment, view taped surgeries and participate in mock surgical cases.
“The purpose is to educate the community in having a nurse in the operating room and highlight professionalism and technology,” said Barb Adams, director of Surgery Services at Cape Coral Hospital. “We will have two operating rooms set up with different stations.”
Interactive demonstrations will include using a grasper to emulate gall bladder surgery with M&M candy pieces and stone blasting a kidney stone using a laser-like instrument to disintegrate pebbles in a bucket of water.
Tours through the surgical wing are available every 45 minutes from the hospital’s lobby and advanced registration is not required. The tour areas include same day surgery, operating rooms, post-anesthesia care recovery and the Cape Coral Hospital Auxiliary.
Video equipment will also play live recorded surgeries while total titanium hip and knee joints will be on display for people to touch and examine. According to Adams, there will be an entire table full of joint hardware from the hospital’s implant company.
Since the mid-1980s the hospital has hosted similar tours through its surgical wing in honor of Operating Room Nurses Week. In past years there have been between 200 and 250 visitors.
On Sunday the first tour through Cape Coral Hospital’s surgical wing will consist of 64 Girl Scouts between the ages of 11-16 who have expressed interest in health care careers.