the special scrub caps used in Pedro and Augusto's surgery

The above and beyond care that Pedro and Augusto received at Dayton Children’s didn’t occur only in the operating room. It also included the small touches from the team to make them feel comfortable and at ease along the way.

One of these touches was to have everyone on the surgery team in matching snake scrubs caps, an homage to a favorite song of the boys. When it came to creating the caps, Krystal Smith, RN, service line coordinator for surgery, was the perfect person for the job:

Why snake scrub caps?
We chose to do snake fabric because when the boys first arrived, their favorite song was “Soy Una Serpiente,” which mean, “I'm a snake.” It made them so happy when coming down to the operating room (OR), so we hoped seeing everyone in snake print hats would also make them happy.

Why did you decide to make snake caps for the twins’ surgery team?
Dr. Antosh came to me with the idea to make the hats for the team. I make my own scrub hats for fun, so I was the appropriate person for the job. He purchased the fabric and I made a hat for every Dayton Children's employee that was going to be in the OR for the twins’ final separation surgery.

In total, I made 21 hats. This was for the three circulator nurses, three scrub technicians, two personal care assistants, one first assist, two surgeons, six anesthesiologists, and four certified registered nurse anesthetists.

Is there anything else that the team did to recognize the boys or the complexity of this case?
I feel like we all knew the complexity of this case and we were very prepared for any and all outcomes during each surgery because of the mock scenarios and codes we practiced. We prepped for each case with meetings where we discussed the boys’ positioning and where we were going to be working in the brain along with the risks of that particular surgery. But we basically treated them like any other case when we got to the actual day of surgery. I felt like that was our way of staying calm. We knew what we were doing, we were prepared and trained. We were the best staff for those cases and knew the boys were in the best hands. We just had to proceed like it was business as usual.

We were fortunate to have a team that worked so cohesive together. We all trusted that everyone knew what to do and we communicated well.

watch the connected documentary 

To learn more about Pedro and Augusto, watch the connected documentary today.