[cinja]

My question as a nursing student is do RN's learn to put on and take off casts? Is this done in a cast room within ortho or is there a cast room in the ER?

[rgroyer1RNBSN]

I usually work er and sicu at my hospital as a charge nurse and I dont exactley know how they do it there at the big hospital but at my other job a small town hospital I work at they have an orhtopedic room in er but in er we generally dont cast we put on an ocl splint in er and if they need a cast the ortho doc puts one on in the office now thats at the small hospital and on the med-surg unit at the small hospital which I work sometimes they only have 6 nursing units there they have med-surg which is where all medical, surgical, ortho, and post-partum pts go, peds w/ nursery, l&d, ICU, CCU, and a step down unit, now I know they have a cast room in med-surg since they care for the ortho pts. but usually an Lpn or tech work in there Im not sure about the other units. Good Luck with school!

[P_RN]

I have put on casts but I'm not as good as the cast tech who's done hundreds. There is a cast room in the clinic, on the ortho floor. As casting is usually done after swelling is down so yes mostly ocl/ posterior splints in the ER. I don't think I'd like to be limited to the plaster room as an RN.....pretty monotonous. Knowing how is one thing, doing it all the time yeeeeech.

[cast-it]

I am an orthopedic nurse in a rural community in washington state. There is also another nurse in this department as well at 2 CMA's. Part of the RN's duty is to apply and remove all of the casts for our dept as well for pediatrics as well. When you cast people long term it is challenging to get functional good fitting casts that the patient will comply with. I actually enjoy doing this part of my job.