Do not disturb

I'll file this one under 'you learn something new every day.' On Monday morning I got a quick look at the new surgical unit under construction at Avera Marshall. Pretty straightforward stuff — there's not much to see in an operating room until the surgical equipment is actually hooked up. But what hadn't occurred to me before was just how big of a challenge health and safety are when you're doing renovations inside a hospital. For example, the operating and recovery rooms I was shown had to be specially walled off from the rest of the unit and other parts of the hospital, so as not to compromise things like air quality. It's a painstaking process, even if the divider isn't masonry. Put up the wall, finish the rooms, take down the wall, start again with the next area. Wow.